Pittsburgh heads to Chicago on Tuesday with the stronger attack on paper, but this isn’t a matchup between a rolling favorite and a struggling underdog. The Penguins just snapped a three-game losing streak, while the Blackhawks have lost five of their first six games. Pittsburgh’s challenge is turning that attacking advantage into a steadier performance; Chicago’s chance rests partly on testing a Penguins team that has already shown some sharp swings in goal.
Pittsburgh has an edge, but the price matters
The current moneyline makes Pittsburgh a -148 favorite at DraftKings, with Chicago at +124. Our offensive grades support that distinction: the Penguins earn a B, compared with a D- for the Blackhawks. Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust give Pittsburgh a recognizable first-line focal point, with Evgeni Malkin also in the forward mix.
Our shot projections give Pittsburgh about 29 shots to Chicago’s 25—a useful shooting-volume advantage, though not an overwhelming one. The Penguins’ recent scoring offers a counterweight to their stronger grade: their last three results show two, two and three goals, with Saturday’s win coming in a shootout.
On Saturday, Pittsburgh beat Dallas 2-1 in a shootout, with Rakell scoring the deciding shootout goal and Arturs Silovs making 24 saves. That ended the losing streak, but Pittsburgh scored only once in regulation—it wasn’t an attacking breakout.
There’s a useful price lesson in Chicago’s longer betting history, too. Over the past year, its opponents won outright in 55 of 85 games, yet flat one-unit moneyline bets against the Blackhawks returned a profit of only 2.93 units. Regularly beating a struggling team and getting a generous betting price aren’t the same thing.
Chicago’s availability and workload questions
Connor Bedard’s shoulder injury is the key personnel issue. His injury listing still has him on injured reserve, but Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday that he might be available against Pittsburgh. A possible return leaves an important part of Chicago’s attacking picture unresolved.
The Blackhawks also need to reduce the pressure on their goalie. In Saturday’s 5-2 loss to Carolina, Chicago was outshot 39-26 and Spencer Knight made 34 saves. Our projections anticipate a smaller shot gap here, giving the Blackhawks a more manageable workload than they faced against the Hurricanes.
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Why the 6.5-goal total isn’t straightforward
If Silovs and Knight get the starts, their recent goalie performances give the scoring discussion some real tension. Both have save percentages around .885 across four appearances this season. Knight allowed at least four goals in three of those outings; Silovs allowed five twice, but also posted a shutout and held Dallas to one goal Saturday.
Those uneven results make it difficult to treat either goal crease as a reliable brake on scoring at a total of 6.5. Chicago’s games have gone Over in four of six this season, despite its weak record. Still, those games used totals of either 5.5 or 6.5, and Pittsburgh’s six recent games from this season are evenly split between Overs and Unders. The Penguins’ modest recent scoring and Chicago’s weaker attacking grade are meaningful counterweights to the goalies’ rough stretches.
We project roughly three power-play opportunities for each team, so the opportunity count doesn’t suggest a pronounced special-teams imbalance. At 6.5, the scoring case depends more on whether Pittsburgh can turn its shooting edge into sustained production and whether Chicago’s attack can contribute alongside it.
Pittsburgh has the clearer attacking case, but its roughly four-shot projected advantage and quiet recent scoring make the favorite’s price worth weighing carefully. Chicago’s heavy workload against Carolina and both goalies’ uneven performances keep scoring vulnerability in the picture, while the Blackhawks’ weaker attack pushes back against a simple high-scoring outlook. The key distinction is whether Pittsburgh’s better attack produces consistently—not just whether Chicago continues to lose.
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