Penguins Practice: Here’s Latest Development with Sidney Crosby

CRANBERRY — Sidney Crosby was on the ice during the Pittsburgh Penguins’ practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex today, even though he wasn’t part of much of it.

He appeared go through pre-workout drills without difficulty, then shifted to the second sheet of ice to do individual work. One noteworthy observation: He spent considerable time deflecting shots from an assistant coach, but took wrist shots only occasionally, and without their usual velocity.

Crosby did not take part in the team’s workout Wednesday, when coach Mike Sullivan said he was being evaluated for an unspecified upper-body injury.

Crosby missed about half of the third period of the Penguins’ 3-2 shootout loss to New Jersey Tuesday after appearing to injure his left arm in a multi-player collision. He returned in the second half of the period and was involved in the overtime and shootout that followed.

His status for the Penguins’ next game, Friday against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, is not known, although taking part in the workout suggests that he could be in the lineup.

A teammate had suggested after practice Wednesday that he believed Crosby’s absence was due to him being given a “maintenance day” because of the incident in the Devils game.

If Crosby’s injury would turn out to be significant, however, it could not only force him to miss the Penguins’ next two games — they play in Philadelphia Saturday — but also could affect his availability for the Four Nations tournament, which is scheduled to begin next week.

Crosby has been named Team Canada’s captain for that event.

If he proves to have a lost-time issue, Crosby’s streak of appearing in 229 consecutive games — the longest such current streak on the team — also would be in jeopardy.

Still, his participation in today’s workout is fairly solid evidence that his streak will remain intact going into the Rangers game.

Second-line center Evgeni Malkin, who is listed as week-to-week with an unspecified lower-body injury, did not take part in the practice and is not believed to have gone on the ice before the full-team workout today.

He was, however, at the rink and seemed to be trying out a pair of skates shortly before his teammates went on the ice.

Penguins Lines

With Crosby (and Malkin) out of the mix, the Penguins used these personnel combinations during practice:

Anthony Beauvillier-Rickard Rakell-Bryan Rust
Michael Bunting-Cody Glass-Danton Heinen
Matt Nieto-Kevin Hayes-Phil Tomasino
Boko Imama-Blake Lizotte-Noel Acciari

Matt Grzelcyk-Erik Karlsson
P.O Joseph-Kris Letang
Ryan Graves-Vincent Desharnais
Extra: Ryan Shea