Pittsburgh Penguins vs San Jose Sharks Prediction: Best Bet for Wednesday

Neither team defends well and neither record impresses, but Pittsburgh scores 3.17 goals per game and San Jose scores 2.45, and that gap shows up every night. Macklin Celebrini has 21 points for the Sharks, and Wednesday asks whether one young star can outscore a whole team's worth of finishing.

The Matchup

Pittsburgh is 6-10-2, scoring 3.17 goals per game and allowing 3.56, a -0.39 differential from a team whose attack still works and whose defensive end does not. Erik Karlsson leads the Penguins with 18 points on 15 assists from the blue line, and Tommy Novak has 7 goals.

The road has been rough: Pittsburgh is 2-7-1 away from home, and that split is the honest warning on the favorite here. What the Penguins still do, in every building, is create and finish enough chances to stay in games their defense tries to give away.

San Jose is 8-11-1, scoring 2.45 per game and allowing 3.50 for a -1.05 differential, the weakest mark on the Wednesday slate. Macklin Celebrini leads the Sharks in everything: 7 goals, 14 assists and 21 points, and he is already the player a game plan has to start with.

The problem is what happens when Celebrini is off the ice. San Jose's scoring falls off fast, and 2.45 goals a night asks a leaky defense to win low-scoring games it is not built to win. The Sharks are 4-5-0 at home, so the building has not covered for it either.

Key Factors

Special teams, unusually for this slate, decide almost nothing here. Pittsburgh converts 20.4 percent on the power play and kills 76.6 percent of its penalties. San Jose converts 20.3 percent and kills 76.4 percent. The two profiles are nearly identical, which pushes the whole game back to even strength, and even strength is where Pittsburgh's scoring edge lives: 3.17 goals a night against 2.45, with Karlsson moving the puck out of trouble and into chances in a way San Jose's blue line cannot match.

San Jose owns the crease edge, and it is fair to say so plainly. Yaroslav Askarov is at a 3.22 goals-against average and a .889 save percentage in 13 games for the Sharks, with Alex Nedeljkovic at 3.23 and .895 behind him. Arturs Silovs is at 3.35 and .873 in 12 games for Pittsburgh. Neither team gets goaltending it can trust, which again points back to the attack: in a game where both nets leak, the team that creates more usually wins, and that team is Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh could be without Ville Koivunen, who is day-to-day with a lower body injury. Keep an eye on whether Koivunen plays before placing a bet. Bryan Rust is on injured reserve with a lower body injury for Pittsburgh, and Ryan Graves is on injured reserve with a knee injury. San Jose lists Igor Chernyshov and Quentin Musty on injured reserve.

The San Jose case is Celebrini at home, the better goaltending numbers, and a Pittsburgh team that has won two of ten road games. It fails on the finishing: the Sharks score the second-fewest goals on the slate, carry the slate's worst differential, and need Celebrini to win a game almost by himself against a team that scores nearly three-quarters of a goal more per night. One star can do that some nights. The price says it happens more often than the numbers support.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.