(UPDATED) Penguins Practice: Letang Sick, Carter Out with Lower Body Injury
CRANBERRYÂ — The Pittsburgh Penguins are carrying the emotional toll of a four-game losing streak after back-to-back losses to the Vancouver Canucks, and Seattle Kraken followed back-to-back losses to the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames last week. Monday, the Penguins returned to the UPMC Lemieux Facility for practice, but without a couple of key players.
Jeff Carter, 37, was absent from practice. Carter played just four minutes against Seattle on Saturday. He was injured in the second period. Coach Mike Sullivan did not have a postgame update on Carter.
Carter was not on the ice Monday.
Nor was top defenseman Kris Letang, who struggled on the western trip, including a minus-3 performance against the Edmonton Oilers last Monday.
UPDATE: Coach Mike Sullivan said Letang was sick. Carter is still being evaluated for a lower-body injury. Teddy Blueger was a full participant in practice. He will remain on LTIR until Nov. 5. Blueger has not played yet this season. He was injured early in training camp before the preseason began.
Penguins News
The Pittsburgh Penguins did a little bit of housekeeping. Drake Caggiula was returned to the WBS Penguins, and third-year pro Drew O’Connor was called up from the WBS Penguins.
O’Connor, 24, has played in 33 NHL games and scored six points (3-3-6).
Practice Tone
Skills coach Ty Hennes ran the first drills in practice: an uptempo stickhandling drill. Associate head coach Todd Rierden began the second drill — rapid-fire puck retrieval and breakouts.
Special teams were affected by Letang’s absence. Jeff Petry was elevated to the top power-play unit. P.O Joseph ran PP2. Sam Poulin was at the net front of PP2.
“I thought the energy was good. I thought we had a good film session this morning,” Sullivan said. “It’s our job as a coaching staff to bring them some answers and try to help them with some of the challenges that were up against in order to get the results that we’re looking for. So I thought we had a productive day.”
Penguins Lines:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Malkin-Rakell
Heinen-O’Connor-Kapanen
McGinn-Poehling-Archibald
Poulin and Blueger rotated as extras.
Categorized:Penguins Penguins Practice
Dan, plus minus is a worthless stat. The amount of control a player has over their own plus minus is tiny. To many variables involved. It doesn’t rate a players performance. More of the teams performance. So it’s not fair to use plus minus to rate kris letang’s performance or any players overall performance. I think it’s safe to say the team is struggling overall in all areas of the game. Not just one or two players
While I’ve heard that argument from the advanced stats community, when two players are minus-3, and no other player is more than a minus-1 in a game, when you watch the game and it lines up with the eyes, it’s a notable stat.
While I greatly respect your opinion and love this site. I usually always agree with your analysis and perspective on the organization and player performance. I disagree about the plus minus statistic its completely flawed stat that does not accurately equate a players performance.
Ruuta +7 Pettersen +5 Joseph +4 Petry+2. Top Penguins Defence-Letang-5 Domoulin-2 Kappy-3 Carter-2 Rust-1 Rakell+6
Wow you can use plus minus. Doesn’t change the facts that it’s a flawed statistic that does not accurately equate a players performance. It’s that simple put cal makar on the coyotes and he will have a big minus number. To many variables to consider other quality of your teammates goaltending. Plus minus is the worst stat in hockey. A goal can be score a player could have nothing to do with letting that goal happen and still get a minus. So I’m unsure where you got those stats. But any player on the ice when a goal goes in… Read more »