Penguins
Penguins Practice: Geno In Familiar Spot; Dumoulin With Letang
After a day off and a day with just a off-ice workout, the Pittsburgh Penguins returned to practice Tuesday, and there were a couple personnel tidbits of note.
Evgeni Malkin was centering Jason Zucker and Bryan Rust at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. In other words, he was back in his normal spot, despite the fact that Malkin has one more game to serve of a four-game suspension and won’t be available to play Thursday when the Boston Bruins visit PPG Paints Arena.
In addition, Brian Dumoulin was back on the top defense pairing with Kris Letang. Those two have a long history of playing together, but lately, Mike Matheson has skated alongside Letang.
Also, defenseman Nathan Beaulieu, a trade deadline addition, joined his new teammates for the first time, albeit wearing a white, presumably non-contact jersey. Beaulieu was already on LTIR when the Penguins picked him up. He has not played since early March because of a lower-body injury.
No one was absent.
Keep in mind that after a couple days off the ice and another practice scheduled for Wednesday, the Penguins, with their four-day break between games, have the luxury of looking at some different things, perhaps having a longer practice than usual and preparing for when Malkin returns.
There are only five games left in the season. The Pittsburgh Penguins have clinched a playoff spot, but their placing — third in the Metropolitan Division or a wildcard spot — has not been wrapped up.
Here is how they stacked up at practice:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen-Jeff Carter-Kasperi Kapanen
Evan Rodrigues-Teddy Blueger-Brian Boyle/Brock McGinn
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
Mike Matheson-Chad Ruhwedel
Nathan Beaulieu-Mark Friedman
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Beaulieu a right or left shot?
Left.
Lefty
Pettersson + Marino = Brain cramp/turnover/bullying waiting to happen
Pettersson+ anyone really. After he got his contract he has been average to below average and that signing will go down as Rutherford’s worst, in my opinion. I get that he wanted to lock up a solid, young defenseman, but at that point Pettersson was still relatively unproven. Unfortunately seeing the same from Marino lately
Because he was a stupid rutherford trade/extension. He got way too fond of being the “hidden gem” guy…and closed the window on his own fingers
Legit finance question here–how are Penguins so up against the cap ($11,000 away last I heard and couldn’t even call anyone up from WBS) when big contract guys like Malkin (first-half) and Zucker have missed so much of season? Doesn’t LTIR free up cash? Is it just Rakell acquisition? Beaulieu likely won’t even suit up during regular which makes seeing him in playoffs unlikely unless team gets decimated. I’m an X’s and O’s guy–not sure where money went.
LTIR frees up cash when players are on it. When they return the freed up cash disappears.
Thanks Uros. Still not sure I have it right–so if Malkin makes 9 million per–and plays half a season–are you saying when he comes back all 9 million is counted against cap (as opposed to 4.5)–just not until he laces up for first time (unless playoffs maybe–seem to remember something about Kuznetsov like that)
There are ways for a team to bank cap from early in the season to be used later (e.g. what the Wild are doing right now), but to do that, the team has to be under the cap. The Penguins were never under the cap this season, so they cannot take advantage of this. LTIR doesn’t remove the player’s cap from the books, it just allows the team to be over the cap while LTIR is being used (e.g. while Malkin was on LTIR, Malkin’s full cap hit remained, but the Pens were allowed to be $9.5M over the cap).… Read more »
Well I really appreciate all the responses. Bit of a Pandora’s Box I guess once you start digging around. Seems as per PenPal it would be rather useful to get somewhere under cap next season–then you can actually recoup or “bank” some salary when injuries happen and hey this is hockey–easier said then done I guess.
They shouldn’t have activate zucker…they shoulda stashed him to make more deadline moves and then used him in the playoffs. The lighting won a cup that way…it’s allowed. So instead they keep keeping on with a flawed roster that struggles to “find their game”
My bad it was Kucherov not Kuznetsov–I swapped my Russians.