PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Forget that you gave Tristan Jarry a long-term contract to be your number one at the start of the season, Pens head coach Mike Sullivan is going with Alex Nedeljkovic is as close to a must-win game as you can get. The word you keep hearing is Nedeljkovic battles.
“At the end of the day we are trying to answer the question, which guy, and I say this to you guys all the time, regardless of what position, we are making the lineup decisions on which guys give us the best chance to win tonight,” Sullivan said. “This given night.”
Sullivan and his staff believe it’s the 28-year-old Nedeljkovic, who will make his 11th consecutive start even though he was pulled in the second period in a loss to Boston on Saturday after giving up three goals. If you look at the save percentages from the last four games-.813, .833, .870, .882.
“I think it’s just confidence,” said Pens captain Sidney Crosby of believing in Nedeljkovic. “He competes really hard. We’ve been in a lot of different types of games, high scoring, low scoring, lead changes and I think he’s competed really hard.”
“The battle, the work ethic,” defenseman Marcus Pettersson told 93.7 The Fan.
“As a team you recognize that, how much he is battling. How much he is competing. It feed off to the rest of the team. I think that’s a good word, battling.”
“They are not easy ones,” Sullivan said of the decision. “Ned and Jars have both done a terrific job on goal this year and given us the chance to win. Most recently, Ned has helped us win a bunch of games. We are looking at this one game tonight in front of us.”