After a modestly successful road trip which saw them win two games out of three against some Atlantic Division foes, the Pittsburgh Penguins return home tonight for a visit from one more team from the Atlantic, the Buffalo Sabres, before hosting the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. After that, the Penguins head out to western Canada for that annual road trip which gratefully includes one afternoon game (3:00PM on Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets). Before all that though, there’s these two home games against a pair of teams which are at the bottom of their respective divisions (as of this writing) but aren’t expected to be before long. Pittsburgh comes into these games with their two franchise cornerstones, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, on the verge of incredible milestones: Sid is one point away from #1600 in his career, while Geno is one goal away from #500. It’s interesting then to observe how things are currently going for both players.

For Malkin, who many have been anticipating the start of a regression in production, he in fact is currently the only Penguin at or above a point per game and is also at the top of the NHL leaderboard in points. It is worth highlighting that there have been few times in their careers when they’ve both been healthy that Malkin has had better wingmates than Crosby, but in the early goings that has definitely been the case. While Crosby has been stuck with Anthony Beauvillier (who is out of his depths in the top six) while Drew O’Connor, Rickard Rakell, and now over the last two games Bryan Rust have been cycling through on Sid’s other side, Malkin has largely stuck with Michael Bunting and mostly Rakell. Four of his seven points have been primary assists, two have been secondary assists (both on the power play), and his one goal thus far is the one he popped into Montreal’s empty net to help salt away Pittsburgh’s 6-3 win against the Canadiens on Monday. But a continuing theme for Geno over the past couple of years has been that he’s much less sloppy and playing better overall hockey.

In contrast is Crosby, who has had an atypically rough start. Although his line has been generating a lot of offense in terms of the expected goals and shot attempts metrics, there hasn’t been much actual production as Crosby has three assists, Beauvillier has two goals, and that’s it for that line at even strength. Sid in particular has been uncharacteristically sloppy and (I hate to use the word, but) impotent. His eight giveaways, including three in the defensive zone, lead the team’s forwards. He’s taken the third-most shot attempts on the team, but not only have almost half of those shot attempts missed the net, but they’re also largely of the low-danger variety. Again, a lot of this probably has to do with not having great linemates, but Jake Guentzel is not walking through that door. Maybe head coach Mike Sullivan will give Rutger McGroarty a chance with Crosby? (Edit: LOL nope) Doubtful, but then Sullivan runs the risk of disrupting any of the other lines which have been largely doing their jobs over the first four games. One way or another, Sid clearly needs some help.

Otherwise I think there have been more positives than negatives to start the season. The main issue still is the uneven goaltending, as few teams can get away with allowing 3+ goals every night and win even half the time. In defense of Tristan Jarry and Joel Blomqvist, much of the complaints have centered around the defensemen in front of them, and those complaints are very accurate. Pittsburgh is in the bottom five in the NHL in all of the shots against metrics, as well as in expected goals against and actual goals against. They’re making up for it somewhat by also being one of the top five teams in most of the same metrics offensively, except where it counts: goals for. The caveats of course being that it’s early, there’s still plenty of time for things to regress in a positive fashion, and the Penguins are lucky to be one of the few teams doing alright despite these early-season issues. But we had a feeling the goaltending wouldn’t be able to bail Pittsburgh out very often and thus far that has been the case.

The Buffalo Sabres, the Penguins’ opposition and visitors for tonight, are also off to an awkward start. Since returning back to North America after being swept in two games in Prague at the hands of the New Jersey Devils, Buffalo lost another game (3-1 to Los Angeles on Thursday) before finally getting in the win column with a 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday. While the Sabres are one of the few teams to have taken more shot attempts than Pittsburgh, it hasn’t translated to goals and they are the second-worst performing team in the NHL in terms of actual goals to expected goals. Defensively they haven’t been quite as permissive as the Penguins thus their goaltending has been slightly weaker then Pittsburgh’s, which should make us feel a little better about ourselves. Moreover Buffalo’s young tandem of Devon Levi and Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen are well regarded up-and-comers, so there’s some schadenfreude to be had here with the Penguins struggling to find some consistency in their netminders.

Still, the Sabres are the youngest team in the NHL, and because of that I think a day will come when we won’t be so amused by their performance. They better figure it out soon though, because there is stiff competition in their own division (Detroit, Ottawa, soon Montreal) and they might miss their chance if they don’t get in gear.