Updated: Malkin Has Maintenance Day; Power Play Revamp

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin was not on the ice for the start of practice Friday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. Coach Mike Sullivan said Malkin was given a maintenance day off the ice. There was no indication that will affect his status for Saturday’s home game against Montreal.

Malkin leads the Penguins with 14 points. He has seemed to be flying around the ice the past couple games after moving to left wing on the top line with Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell. He had 21:53 of ice time Thursday in the Penguins’ 2-1 overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks at home.

All other expected players were on the ice.

With Malkin out, Anthony Beauvillier skated with Crosby and Rakell at practice.

Shaking up Penguins PP

Even with Malkin out, the Penguins showed a different look on the power play at practice, something that started evolving against the Ducks, including Kris Letang moving to the second unit and Matt Grezlcyk moving up to the top unit.

The rest of the top unit Friday included Crosby, Rakell, Erik Karlsson and Michael Bunting. Letang was joined on the second unit by Lars Eller, Kevin Hayes, Valtteri Puustinen and Cody Glass.

The Penguins rank 14th in the NHL with a 20.6 percent success rate on the power play — improved from the 15.9 percent from last season that had them finishing 30th in the league. They were 0-for-3 Thursday and are 1-for-9 over the past four games.

“We’re looking for better execution,” Sullivan said. “We’re scoring goals on the power play (but) we’re also looking at the process and what it looks like in its sustainability. We just think that it was at the point where it’s been a few games in a row now where from a process standpoint we weren’t satisfied with where it’s at, so we’re trying to affect a little bit of change. We’ll see where that goes.”