Sharks vs. Penguins Lines: Pittsburgh without Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby

Good news for Sharks fans: Matt Nieto will draw back into the lineup tonight in the stead of Micheal “Sharks are 1-0 when he plays this season” Haley. The news isn’t so good if you’re a fan of the Penguins.

Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin are both out for Pittsburgh tonight, and that’s in addition to Sidney Crosby. Don’t get it twisted, the Penguins are still one of the best teams the Sharks will see on this road trip — it just won’t quite be the measuring stick game we thought it would be to start.

In other Penguins news, Matt Murray signed a contract extension today. Marc-Andre Fleury will start as Murray works towards a return from injury.

Projected Sharks Lines

Tomas Hertl - Joe Thornton - Joe Pavelski

Mikkel Boedker - Logan Couture - Joonas Donskoi

Patrick Marleau - Chris Tierney - Joel Ward

Matt Nieto - Tommy Wingels - Melker Karlsson

Justin Braun - Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Brent Burns - Paul Martin

Brenden Dillon - David Schlemko

Martin Jones

Aaron Dell

Projected Penguins Lines

Chris Kunitz - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust

Carl Hagelin - Nick Bonino - Phil Kessel

Scott Wilson - Matt Cullen - Patric Hornqvist

Tom Sestito - Eric Fehr - Tom Kuhnhackl

Olli Maatta - Trevor Daley

Ian Cole - Justin Schultz

Derrick Pouliot - Brian Dumoulin

Marc-Andre Fleury

Mike Condon