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Posted at 12:45 PM EST

7:05 PM EST. OT included. Matt Murray has posted a .930 save percentage over his last six starts. Murray has led the Penguins to a 4-0-2 record over those contests. After a disastrous start this season with a 4.08 GAA and .877 save percentage in 11 starts through November, Murray has posted a 2.29 GAA and .931 save percentage in 25 games since then. By contrast, Sergei Bobrovsky has been laboring for weeks while the better goaltender, Joonas Korpisalo mostly sits on the bench. Korpisalo was great against the Pens on Thursday but he just didn’t get any offensive support. If not for some of his huge saves, Thursday’s game would have gotten out of hand by the end of the second frame. Thursday was the second time since February 26 that the Pens beat the Jackets by three goals.

On paper, Columbus looks like a beast. Its top line of Matt Duchene, Cam Atkinson and Artemi Panarin should be wreaking havoc. Pierre Luc Dubois, a first line center on some teams and a top-6 forward on others has been playing on the Jackets third line. Columbus is loaded up front and their defense is solid too but they have lost four of six with its two wins over that span occurring against New Jersey and Philadelphia. The victory over Philly came in OT and so did the win over the Devils in a game in which Columbus managed a mere 18 shots on net. In other words, the Jackets are playing like hot garbage and there is probably something within that’s happening.

At the deadline, Duchene and Ryan Dzingel were added. That shuffled the lines up big time. Before the deadline, Panarin said he’s walking after the season. If you were playing for a lifetime contract, would you go all out and risk injury? It appears that there are some soured players on this squad. Some are likely upset about being placed on different lines after 60 games of blood, sweat and tears and others likely don’t appreciate the way John Tortorella handled it. In fact, there was a recent article in a reputable publication that surveyed 300 NHL players and one of the questions was, “Which coach would you like to play for the least”? Torts was the one of the top two. This is an extremely talented team but they’re not a cohesive one and they’re playing like they seriously don’t give a f**k. To top it off, the goaltending is weak when Bob plays. In an effort to “shake things up” again, Torts shuffled the lines last game and shuffled them again in practice yesterday but the damage is done. There are no switches to turn teams’ on and off.

Back to the Pens now. The Penguins are playing for their playoff lives and they have a wounded prey here. The names need not be mentioned because we all know who they are but just know that the Penguins smell blood in the water, they have a massive edge in goal here and they also have a significant psychological edge too. was in net for the 5-4 win while Juuse Saros was in goal for the 3-2 win. Rinne has posted save percentages of .879, .752 and .889 in three of his last seven starts. He recently went through a stretch in which he posted save percentages of .840, .727, .864, .871,.818, .880, .897, .879, .750, .853 and .885 in 11 of 18 games. The market thinks this guy is the straight goods while we insist otherwise, because the proof has always been in the pudding. The Preds play a strong defensive game when P.K Subban isn’t on the ice but overall, this team is heavily reliant on one line and Filip Forsberg might not even play here. Nashville has been a difficult venue to overcome the past few years but it’s becoming easier to emerge victorious, as the Preds have regressed while to many teams have improved. The opposition and that includes this live underdog, are no longer going into Bridgestone Arena shaking in their blue suede skates. Coming off an 8-1 loss, the Hurricanes figure to bring it here.

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