After Evgeni Malkin was held out of the final minutes of Saturday’s regular season finale, the Penguins were optimistic the center had not significantly re-aggravated the right knee injury that had recently sidelined him for seven weeks.
Two days later, Malkin was on the ice Monday morning in Cranberry as 13 skaters and three goalies took part in an optional practice for the Penguins. So he appears to be just fine after worrying Saturday he had “tweaked” something.
In fact, coach Mike Sullivan’s daily briefing on injury news was all positive as they waited to find out who they will play in the first round of the postseason. It turns out it will be the New York Islanders, who lost to the Boston Bruins on Monday night and locked themselves into fourth place in the East Division.
While Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith were not among the three goalies stopping pucks in Monday’s optional practice, Sullivan said his top two goalies got in an individual workout with goaltending coach Mike Buckley that morning.
Jarry missed Saturday’s season finale with an upper-body injury and DeSmith sat out the final three games with a lower-body injury. Sullivan said last weekend that both goalies are expected to be available for the start of the playoffs.
Maxime Lagace, Alex D’Orio and Emil Larmi were the goalies participating in the practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. Lagace got the shutout Saturday in the 1-0 win against the Buffalo Sabres and D’Orio served as his backup.
Mike Matheson was part of Monday’s practice group, wearing a full protective cage on his helmet. The defenseman missed the final four games of the regular season after he was cracked in the face by Jarry’s clearing attempt on May 1.
Brandon Tanev was also among the players at the practice. Sullivan added that Evan Rodrigues, who has been sidelined since April 29, also skated Monday.
“All of those guys skated this morning, which is encouraging,” Sullivan said.
Malkin did not play in the final 8:48 of Saturday’s win at PPG Paints Arena after he collided with a Sabres player in the neutral zone. Head athletic trainer Chris Stewart was spotted taking a look at Malkin’s right knee on the home bench.
That is the same knee Malkin injured March 16, sidelining him for seven weeks. He returned last Monday in Philadelphia and had four points in four games. p- “He thought he tweaked something in that collision. He got checked out afterward and felt fine. So we don’t anticipate any issues moving forward,” Sullivan said on Saturday, adding that Malkin was held out “for precautionary reasons.”
Malkin’s participation Monday validated the team’s optimism after the game.
Playing the waiting game
While the Penguins wrapped up their regular season schedule Saturday, there are a number of teams that are not yet done. So the Penguins on Monday were waiting to find out when Game 1 of their first-round series will take place.
They are guaranteed to have a layoff of at least five days — and likely longer — until their first playoff game. That should be helpful for all those injured players. But Sullivan and the coaching staff must find a way to maintain the momentum the team built up down the stretch, with nine wins in its last 11 games.
“We look at the positives,” Brian Dumoulin said. “Obviously, we’d like to continue to play. But right now we’ve had a lot of injuries this season so it’s always good to have some time off to strengthen what you need to and get some rest.”
Sullivan said the Penguins have a flexible practice plan in place that they may tweak once they find out when they will play. He added that he plans to have the team scrimmage at times this week to try to replicate game-like intensity.
“We put a game plan together that’s best for the team that gives us an opportunity to get some rest and recovery but also make sure that we put in the work that’s necessary to have success,” he said. “So we’re excited about the opportunity we have this week to practice. We haven’t had a whole lot of practice.”
Taxi squad picked up Pens
The Penguins made dozens of moves throughout the regular season that shuffled players among the NHL roster, taxi squad and their American Hockey League club in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. There was a method to all of that madness.
Sullivan said the team had weekly discussions about what the NHL club needed at the time, how players on the fringes of the roster were performing and what would help prepare players to perform capably when they were called up.
“We didn’t just want guys sitting on the taxi squad for an extended length of time without having an opportunity to play in some games,” Sullivan said. “It just doesn’t put players in [position] to be successful. So we anticipated movement.”
That movement ended last weekend. Rosters are expanded in the postseason, so there is no taxi squad, at least in name. Those guys are Black Aces now.
Reflecting on what the Penguins did with their taxi squad, which the NHL instituted this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sullivan was very pleased.
“As I said to them Day 1 of training camp, you never know when that opportunity is going to come, when you get tapped on the shoulder to get in the lineup,” he said. “The last game of the year is a perfect example with our goaltending.”
Lagace spent most of the season on the taxi squad or with the AHL club before recording a shutout Saturday in his first NHL start in more than two years.
Getting Ruhwedel some action
Mark Friedman filled in for Matheson in the first three games that Matheson sat out. In Saturday’s win, Chad Ruhwedel replaced Friedman in the lineup.
“If we’re going to get to where we want to go, it’s going to take more than six defensemen. That’s just our experience based on some runs we’ve gone on in the past. And we want guys to be ready,” Sullivan explained, adding, “We thought it was important to get [Ruhwedel] a game and get him in the lineup.”
Matt Vensel: mvensel@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mattvensel.
First Published: May 10, 2021, 3:35 p.m.
