The Pittsburgh Penguins are hurting. Not on the scoresheet, but in the infirmary.

Pittsburgh defeated the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Friday to even their conference final series at two games apiece. But it was a costly victory for the Penguins, who lost defenseman Chad Ruhwedel to a concussion following a hit by Senators winger Bobby Ryan.

it isn't known if Ruhwedel will be ready for Game 5. For now, he joins fellow blue-liners Kris Letang and Justin Schultz on the sidelines.

The oft-injured Letang, who has been out since late February after undergoing neck surgery, won't see the ice this postseason.

Schultz, meanwhile, has missed the last two games due to an upper-body injury. The 26-year-old has been one of the Penguins' most valuable defenders this postseason, leading all defensemen with eight points in 14 games. Like Ruhwedel, it's unknown if he'll suit up for Game 5.

Ruhwedel's injury is the latest ailment to take its toll on a blue line already short on experience:

Two names stand out among the pack: youngster Derrick Pouliot and veteran Mark Streit, both scratched in Friday's win over the Senators. They've combined for one game this spring.

A former first-round pick by the Penguins, Pouliot has rarely drawn into the lineup under coach Mike Sullivan.

After missing nearly three months to start the season following a lower-body injury, the Saskatchewan native was limited to 11 contests this season. He hasn't played since the final game of the regular season.

The high-flying defenseman has yet to display his scoring touch at the NHL level, but has shown it off with the Penguins' AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he has recorded 70 points through 114 contests.

With the Penguins' back end facing depth challenges, there's no better time for Pouliot to debut that offensive edge than now.

The same can be said for Streit, who was acquired from the Tampa Bay Lightning at the trade deadline. The hope was Streit would bring a veteran voice, but he's skated in a single playoff game with the Penguins, picking up an assist in Game 3 against the Senators.

But it surely won't be the last appearance for Streit this spring, given the injury bug that has hampered the Penguins' blue line. The 39-year-old offers a wealth of knowledge, and now is the time for Sullivan and the Penguins to tap into it.

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With the offseason underway for a number of teams and the remainder to join them in a few weeks, we're looking at what's in store for each club in the coming months.

2016-17 Grade: C

By the most important measure, the season was a failure for the Lightning, but there were still some positives in an otherwise disappointing campaign.

Tampa Bay missed the playoffs by a single victory, just one year after reaching the Eastern Conference Final, but there was a rather significant extenuating circumstance.

Steven Stamkos tore his knee just 17 games into the season, and that put unexpected pressure on a talented, but already fragile roster.

Despite the way Tampa Bay's season finished, general manager Steve Yzerman deserves to be lauded for his work securing the club's core while expertly navigating the salary cap.

He convinced Stamkos to sign an eight-year deal a few days before July 1, negotiated an eight-year pact with Victor Hedman on the first day of free agency, and got Nikita Kucherov inked to a three-year contract two days before the Lightning's season opener.

Yzerman then resolved the uncertainty surrounding pending free agent Ben Bishop, getting defensive prospect Erik Cernak and veteran goalie Peter Budaj in the deal that sent his longtime starting netminder to the Los Angeles Kings.

Still, between Stamkos' injury and just barely missing out on a playoff spot, it certainly wasn't how the Lightning wanted to start or end the season.

Free Agents

The Lightning have three significant deals to get done this summer, as Jonathan Drouin, Ondrej Palat, and Tyler Johnson are all pending RFAs.

Here's a look at the players whose contracts are up for renewal:

Budaj performed admirably behind the Kings' tight defensive system, and Yzerman could do worse than re-signing him to serve as the backup next season.

2017 Draft Picks

The Lightning have seven picks in next month's draft, including a second-round acquired in the Brian Boyle deal and a sixth-round selection sent to Tampa Bay by the Montreal Canadiens in the Nikita Nesterov trade.

Summer priorities

Tampa Bay has three primary objectives before the puck drops next fall:

1. Get Drouin's pen to paper

There was a time when an extension for Drouin seemed out of the question, but the young forward put his holdout behind him and posted his best NHL season to date.

Drouin ranked second on the Lightning with 21 goals and finished third with 53 points, making his past transgressions distant memories.

The 22-year-old is now unquestionably a key part of the franchise's future, and getting him locked in on a long-term deal would be another coup for Yzerman and company.

Signing Johnson and Palat is certainly important, as well, but getting Drouin's deal done has to be considered the No. 1 item on the offseason agenda.

2. Find more 'O' from the 'D'

The GM said last weekend that more offensive production from the back end was indeed a priority for next season, according to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times.

Hedman poured in a career-high 72 points, but he barely had any offensive help among fellow blue-liners. The next-most productive Lightning defenseman was Anton Stralman, who chipped in 22 points.

Tampa Bay gets so much of its scoring and overall offensive contributions from its forwards, but balancing that with defensemen who help spur the offense would be certainly be beneficial.

3. Improve defensively

The other area of concern is the defensive play of the aforementioned group.

Tampa Bay was an average team in that regard this season, ranking 16th in the NHL with 2.73 goals allowed per game. That was a significant decline from 2015-16, when the Lightning ranked fifth in the league with only 2.41 goals allowed per contest.

Goaltending surely factors into that figure, but Tampa Bay should still look to upgrade defensively, even if the market for blue-liners this summer isn't robust.

2017-18 Outlook

Assuming Stamkos is healthy next season, the Lightning will be expected to return to the playoffs and once again challenge for the Stanley Cup.

Expectations will be high again, and they should be, given Tampa Bay's track record with this core.

It's Andrei Vasilevskiy's crease now, and the 22-year-old goaltender will have a clean slate to build on the 50-game workload he took on this season.

A return to the Cup Final might be setting the bar high, but another playoff miss will simply be unacceptable.

Offseason Outlook Series

COL | VAN | NJD | ARI | BUF
DET | DAL | FLA | LAK | CAR
WPG | PHI | TBL

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The dates for the Stanley Cup Final have been announced.

With four teams - Ottawa Senators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Nashville Predators, and Anaheim Ducks - still vying for spots in the fourth round, the NHL has announced the championship series will begin May 29.

Here's a list of the dates, with start times yet to be determined.

The team with the greatest number of points during the regular season gets home-ice advantage for the series.

Both conference finals are currently tied 2-2.

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Ottawa's power play has been dreadful this postseason. If they can't get it going with the man advantage, their magical run to the conference finals could be over faster than you can say "all even."

The Senators are just six-for-52 (11.5 percent) with the man advantage in the postseason, including an active run of 25 straight power plays without a goal. Only the eliminated Rangers and Blues posted worse power-play percentages in the playoffs.

It's not even the fact that they're not scoring with man advantage, it's that they simply can't get anything going. They've only recorded 46 shots on goal during their 52 power plays, per Corsica.Hockey.

Frankly, that is unacceptable. There's no reason a team should be averaging fewer than one shot per power-play opportunity - especially one good enough to be in the Eastern Conference Final.

Not only has the quantity of shots been poor, but so has the quality. Heading into Friday's game, they'd only generated 20 scoring chances for in 48 opportunities. None of the remaining teams have recorded fewer scoring chances, and Ottawa has received more power plays than anybody.

Since the Sens play such a defensive style of hockey, they can't afford to be this bad with the man advantage. They struggle generating offense as it is.

The best course of action would be to simplify everything. Get more traffic in front and throw everything on net. It doesn't have to be the big slapper. Wristers about a foot off the ice will do just fine.

The power play will certainly be a focal point at Ottawa's next practice, so it will be interesting to see if head coach Guy Boucher does anything to shake it up.

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The Pittsburgh Penguins are down another defenseman.

Chad Ruhwedel suffered a concussion Friday during Game 4 against the Ottawa Senators and will be evaluated once the team returns home, head coach Mike Sullivan announced after the 3-2 win.

Ruhwedel was forced to leave the game after a hit by Bobby Ryan late in the first period and was unable to return.

Ruhwedel joins Kris Letang and Justin Schultz on the Penguins injured defenseman list.

Ryan, by the way, was not penalized on the play.

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Credit Mike Sullivan for ultimately making the right call.

The Pittsburgh Penguins head coach set emotion aside and went with the informed decision, starting Matt Murray in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final in favor of Marc-Andre Fleury, who did yeoman's work to get the team into the third round to begin with.

And in his first start of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Murray stopped 22 of 24 shots, backstopping his team to a huge win over the Ottawa Senators on Friday.

The victory tied the series at 2-2, and effectively sealed Murray's fate as the Penguins' starter for the foreseeable future.

Sure, Murray allowed two goals, but neither came as a result of poor efforts on his part. The second, in particular, took several bounces off sticks and skates en route to the back of the net, and the first was the result of a pretty wicked cross-ice pass from Bobby Ryan to Clarke MacArthur.

More importantly, Murray came up huge in the early minutes, where his team had completely fallen apart in Game 3, resulting in Fleury's early exit. He also made key stops in the dying seconds with the Penguins on the penalty kill and with Craig Anderson having vacated the opposing net.

"(Murray) made some timely saves for us when we needed it," Sullivan said after the game. "I thought he was tracking the puck extremely well."

In two appearances against the Senators in the series, Murray has stopped 41 of 44 shots, good for a save percentage of .932.

After the game, Murray told Hockey Night in Canada's Scott Oake that he didn't feel at his best, which is understandable seeing as, prior to Wednesday, he hadn't played since April 6. He added he felt better as the game went on, which could spell bad news for the Senators moving forward.

It would not have been a shock had Sullivan decided to stick with Fleury, but it appears Murray will take it from here, and rightfully so.

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Evgeni Malkin had a prime view of the Pittsburgh Penguins third goal in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final.

The center was the intended target of a Brian Dumoulin pass that bounced off Dion Phaneuf's skate Friday and into the back of the Ottawa Senators net.

Malkin, who's been battling Phaneuf all series long, made sure the defenseman knew it.

Savage, as the kids say.

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