Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets faceoff live from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus for Game 3 of their Round 1 best-of-seven Stanley Cup Playoffs series. The game can be live streamed for free here. Pittsburgh fans can hear all of the action on WXDX 105.9 while Columbus fans can do the same on 97.1 The Fan.
The Penguins weren't able to fully protect home-ice, earning one win in the first two games of the series while the Blue Jackets come home feeling confident that they can win two and bring a 3-1 series lead back to Pittsburgh with them with two home-ice wins.
Pittsburgh earned a Game 1 victory on a 4-3 come-from-behind victory while Columbus evened things up with a 4-3 victory of their own in overtime during Game 2 on Saturday, which was their first postseason win in history.
The Penguins went just 1-for-8 on the power play in Game 2's loss and will be looking to do better on the man advantage during the rest of the series.
"I think just execution," captain Sidney Crosby told the Penguins website about what was missing from their power play. "We're not creating enough consistently. Either we're not entering well or forcing things when we do get set up. That's an area we definitely have to improve in."
Crosby is second on the team with three points this postseason, all off of assists while Matt Niskanen (two goals, two assists) and Paul Martin (four assists) each have four points.
The Blue Jackets expect a raucous crowd tonight, but the team will take the ice without reliable defenseman Fedor Tyutin, who suffered an undisclosed injury during Game 2.
"He's a veteran guy that's played some big minutes for us, a steady Eddie back there," defenseman James Wisniewski said via NHL.com. "The way that our defense corps has been playing all year, you have to go with it. Obviously, losing one of our older guys, our veteran guys, hurts, but somebody's got to step up."
Columbus has gotten points from players up and down the lineup, and defenseman Jack Johnson leads the team thus far with three points off of two tallies and one helper while Matt Calvert has a team-high two goals, including the double overtime game-winner on Saturday and is one of five players with two points.
Sergei Bobrovsky will make the start for Columbus and has allowed seven goals on 74 shots in the first two games while Marc-Andre Fleury has let up seven goals on 79 shots thus far.
The Penguins and Blue Jackets play in a pivotal Game 3 when the puck drops on them in their best-of-seven Stanley Cup Playoffs series.
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