Brian Dumoulin has an upper body injury and will be out for about one week.
Joe Vitale's status has not been updated
Bobby Farnham will need to be re-evaluated
Injury updates courtesy of Sam Kasan of the Penguins official website
Update 2:20 PM
Things to watch for tonight:
Olli Maatta
Maatta is one of the prospects I am most excited about and this could be one of the last sample sizes we see from him before he is returned to the London Knights.
Making things all the more interesting for tonight's game is that not only is Maatta playing, but according to Josh Yohe of the Pittsburgh Tribune he will be paired with Penguins star defenseman Kris Letang. Given that he will be with Letang I would assume that also means he will get to play a good amount of minutes with the Crosby line.
Depending on how Bylsma wants to match lines this evening it could also mean that Maatta could get a healthy dose of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. I can't think of two better players to give a young defenseman his first real test than those savvy veterans from the Motor City.
Simon Despres
Despres made headlines on the first day of training camp this year when it appeared that he was out of shape. It turns out he had a pretty good excuse and he was going above and beyond. Despres was ill and specifically asked to take part in the sprints towards the end of practice. On the surface he was 50 feet behind his teammates, but in reality most players would not have taken part in the skating session while feeling like that.
The coaching staff is pleased with Despres' conditioning and think he is well prepared for the upcoming season.
Since day 1 Despres has looked better each day he has taken the ice. This is great news moving forward.
I had my foot on the brake regarding my optimism for Despres because of the original report of him being out of shape. My foot is not near the brake anymore, full speed ahead.
Crosby-Kunitz-Dupuis
This line was on fire last year and so far during scrimmages they are showing signs of picking up where they left off. This line will get their first crack at non Penguin competition tonight and it comes against some of the players who have famously shut Crosby down. Henrik Zetterberg is one of the few players who has the potential to slow Crosby down and it will be interesting to see if Detroit's Mike Babcock is able to match Zetterberg up with Sidney. It would be wise for Dan Bylsma to try and use the last change to his advantage in order create total mismatches for the potentially best line in hockey.
Bottom 6 competition
Players like Jayson Megna and Harry Zolnierczyk will have to have a strong game if they want to stay in the competition for one of the last coveted spots on the bottom 6. Last night Chuck Kobasew did his best to lay a claim on one of those positions. A good game by either player tonight would keep pace with that, a bad one might knock them out of contention.
Vokoun
Tomas Vokoun is a professional athlete which means he has a competitive drive inside of him. There is no doubt he wants more playing time coming into this year, especially after his impressive playoff performance. It will be up to Vokoun to build upon his play from the spring in order to try and further solidify his rank within the Penguins goaltending situation.
Update 11:30 AM
Here are the lines from practice as reported by Sam Kasan of the official Penguins website:
Orpik-Martin-Letang (the three rotated)
Maatta-Engelland-Despres (the three rotated)
The power-play units...
Letang and Martin on point. Kunitz, Crosby and Jokinen up front.
Despres and Maatta on point. Dupuis, Sutter and Gibbons up front.
D'Agostini was not practicing, but he has a great reason. His wife has gone into labor. Congratulations and good luck to both Dad and Mom.
Vokoun is slated to get the start in goal for Pittsburgh.
Here is the projected Detroit lineup for tonight (stick tap to Mark Spizzirri)
Sunday night kicked off the preseason for both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blue Jackets won the game 5-4 in overtime. Both teams had some positives to draw from and I will specifically outline the happenings of the game from the Pittsburgh perspective.
Here is a link to the highlights from yesterday’s game from the NHL’s official website.
The Bennett situation is going to be one of the main storylines in the preseason as the Penguins try and figure out what they are going to do with their final top 6 spot. It took all of a minute for Bennett to make his mark on the game when his timely and physical forecheck forced a turnover at the Columbus blue line. Bennett wasted no time moving the puck over to a streaking James Neal who quickly deposited the puck five hole behind Curtis McElhinney.
Beau Bennett has showed up to camp in very good shape and has added weight to his frame which will go a long way in winning even more puck battles. According to Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Bennett was 176 pounds when he was originally drafted. He is now listed at 207 pounds and it is safe to say that weight gain has been in the form of muscle mass.
The next step in Bennett’s development will be for him to be aggressive with his puck decisions. It is easy to fall into a trap of deferring to Malkin or Neal a majority of the time but Bennett is extremely talented in his own right. So far so good on that front.
Look for a guy like Joe Vitale to have a bigger role with the team this year. The coaching staff will be actively working to get him some more PK time. Vitale has very good speed and a possesses the right kind of skill set that would make him a useful penalty killer. Yesterday it was Vitale who joined Scuderi and Jeffrey at the start of the 3 on 5 the Penguins found themselves in.
Speaking of Scuderi, how great is it to have his calm cool presence in the lineup again. His positioning is always proper and consistently makes the simple easy plays.
Vitale found himself in a fight with James Wisniewski later in the game and it did not go well for him. Vitale is now under observation for concussion like symptoms. I’ll never understand the fighting dynamic as it pertains to preseason hockey. Save your brain cells for when the games actually count.
Here is an injury report from Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
The injury to Dumoulin could potentially impact his potential on starting the year with the big club. Dumoulin has been playing well enough to enter the discussion in taking the 6th defensemen spot.
Chuck Kobasew did a great job of making a case for himself on Sunday night. Kobasew was able to score two goals but as silly as it sounds it was his play in the other end that the coaching staff was probably more interested in. Kobasew is fighting for a bottom 6 role, any offense is a bonus. He needs to show he can take care of his own end first and foremost and last night he did nothing to take away from that goal. Very good start for Mr. Kobasew.
Dustin Jeffrey looked very good on the power play last night and he played an all around pretty good game. However, I still don’t really see a proper fit for him in the Penguins organization. As well as he played on the power play he is not going to see any power play time on this team in the regular season. He has 7 forwards ahead of him on the depth chart at least (Crosby, Malkin, Kunitz, Dupuis, Neal, Bennett, Jokinen). It is nice to keep a guy like Dustin Jeffrey around as he is a useful option when injuries hit but he is going to have to leave the Penguins organization if he is ever going to get the minutes he wants. Just a case of bad circumstances for Jeffrey.
How did the rookies do? Derrick Pouliot was able to show some nice things on the power play and showcased some of his impressive puck skills.
Scott Harrington was barely visible last night but I’m not so sure that was a bad thing. Simple plays, simple results, that is what he provided against the Blue Jackets. On Mark Letestu’s goal Harrington made a quality breakout pass to Vitale, who flubbed it, and then the puck came to the goal cage. Harrington buried his guy and took him out during the fight for the puck in the crease area. The goal was scored but it wasn’t on Harrington, he did his job as you can see below.
Tom Kuhnhackl has picked up where he left off in the rookie tournament. He continues to battle in the dirty areas of the ice, specifically in front of the goal where his screen allowed Dustin Jeffrey to score from a long distance. Kuhnhackl works hard to get back on the defensive side of the puck as well. A full year in the AHL without injuries is going to be great for his development.
Sidney Crosby will make his preseason debut as the Red Wings visit the Consol Energy Center tonight at 7PM.
I will update the blog later today with information about tonight's matchup.
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