With their no-shave November mustaches, Riley Sheahan and Bryan Rust are starting to look alike.
The Notre Dame alums, both age 26, also believe they think the game alike and play a style that complements each other. That chemistry, in part, helps to explain why the two were reunited on the fourth line during Saturday's morning skate.
"We know how each other plays: Play a simple straight line game, play both ends of the ice," Rust was explaining to me. "For us, playing that little bit of a grinding game, get pucks to the net and fight for rebounds and get scoring chances that way, I think it's going to help."
With a busy schedule that will see the Penguins play a dozen more games this month and trying to find some balance in the scoring, Mike Sullivan confirmed that he will shuffle his lines around for tonight's game against the Maple Leafs at PPG Paints Arena.
Rust and Sheahan will skate on the fourth line with Patric Hornqvist serving as the right winger. The third line will have Matt Cullen centering Derek Grant on the left and Daniel Sprong on the right.
You can probably debate which is the third and fourth line, since neither fits the traditional mold. But the line of Rust, Sheahan and Hornqvist is the most intriguing if only because the trio comes at a cap hit of $10.9 million for this season.
"We shuffled the bottom six here to try and get people going, if we do so choose to go with that combination tonight," Sullivan said. "With putting Riley in the middle and having a guy like Rusty and Patric Hornqvist on that line it could potentially be a good line for us."
Clearly, the two players that the Penguins need to get going are Sheahan and Rust. Last season they combined for 24 goals but have just two combined through the first 11 games.
Sheahan, who has gone nine games without a goal, has played mostly at left wing while Rust has played mainly at right. Sheahan is a natural center while Rust, though versatile enough to play any spot, is best suited at right wing, his strong side.
"It's something I'm comfortable with, I've played center my whole career," Sheahan was saying. "I think that's the spot I'd rather be playing. I'm ok playing the wing but (center) is a spot I'm most comfortable in. To be between those two guys fits pretty well, and I'm looking forward to it."
THE ESSENTIALS
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Derick Brassard, forward, will miss his fourth straight game with a lower-body injury. He remains day-to-day but is progressing, according to Sullivan. Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss four months after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
• Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews, center, will miss his third straight game with a shoulder injury sustained Oct. 27. He is expected to miss a month.
THE SKATE
• After an off-day on Friday, all the Penguins took the ice for the skate except Brassard. Despite the injury, Brassard is still around. He took in the morning skate from the bench.
• The Maple Leafs held a very optional morning skate with only seven players taking the ice. The most notable were Connor Brown and Travis Dermot.
• When last they faced the Maple Leafs, the Penguins were coming off a pair of losses. But they used those as a springboard to beat Toronto and a season-high four-game winning streak through Canada ensued. Well, the Penguins have now lost two in a row -- both against the Islanders -- and once again face the Leafs on a Saturday night. The Penguins' 3-0 win over Toronto on Oct. 18 might have been their best to date and they're looking to replicate that effort tonight.
"I thought we were smart," Sidney Crosby was saying. "They're going to get chances. I think we were just smart managing the puck and not beating ourselves with big mistakes. We had a lot of good offensive zone time, which helps. We didn't sit back, but I thought we were smart and patient with the way we played."
• Why the moustaches for Rust and Sheahan? It's to raise awareness for men's health. Many players have been sporting 'staches throughout the league in November.
"It's kind of something that hits home with me," Rust was saying. "Family members, friends of family and things like that have gone through prostate cancer, things associated with men's health. As a group of men in here, it' s good to raise that awareness and raise some money and get some people thinking."
• Tonight's will be Carl Hagelin's 500th career game and 191st with the Penguins.
THE OTHER SIDE
After the Maple Leafs started the season 6-1, it seemed a parade down Yonge Street was already in the works.
Then came a humbling 3-0 home loss to the Penguins on Oct. 18, which was the start of four losses in the Leafs' last six games.
The Maple Leafs are 0-2 since Matthews went down with a shoulder injury. More troubling, they've scored just one goal each in consecutive losses to Dallas and Calgary. Matthews remains Toronto's leading goal scorer by far with 10, while John Tavares is second with seven.
Mike Babcock said he was pleased with his team's ability to generate offense, the Leafs have just been unable to score, he said.
With Cullen and Sheahan taking most of the defensive draws for the Penguins, Babcock said that Sullivan has the upper hand in dictating the matchups he wants. That puts an onus on the Maple Leafs' top six to win their matchup against the Penguins' top six.
"You have to learn how to play against the best if you're going to be successful," Babcock said.
Though the Maple Leafs have won all five of their road games this season, they have won just two of their last eight games in Pittsburgh.
THE COMBINATIONS
The Penguins showed the following lines and pairs. The Leafs lines were culled from conversations with Toronto reporters:
Guentzel-Crosby-Simon
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Grant-Cullen-Sprong
Rust-Sheahan-Hornqvist
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Oleksiak
Johnson-Ruhwedel
Hyman-Tavares-Kapanen
Marleau-Kadri-Marner
Brown-Lindholm-Levi
Johnson-Gauthier-Ennis
Rielly-Hainsey
Gardiner-Zaitsev
Dermot-Ozhiganov
THE SCHEDULE
Faceoff tonight is at 7:15 p.m. to accommodate CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcast. Tomorrow, the Penguins are scheduled to practice at noon in Cranberry Township, Pa.
THE COVERAGE
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