The Penguins opened up training camp with the following groups split out for three separate practices.
Team 1
Training camp is for finding out new things and seeing players outside of norms, we saw that with Bryan Rust and Blake Lizotte (both on Team 2 today) working away from known entities that each share with Sidney Crosby and Connor Dewar (Team 1), respectively. Eventually those duos could be in-line to reunite before the start of the season but for as fluid as the lineups will be during the season it’s
good to see new faces in new places rather than immediately lock in on permanent combinations. Here was the breakout:
Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Nick Robertson
Connor Dewar – Hendrix Lapierre – Justin Brazeau
Filip Hallander – Tristan Broz – Avery Hayes
Tanner Howe – Bill Zonnon – Atley Calvert
Sam Girard / Kaedan Korczak
Ryan Graves/ Chase Pietila
Owen Pickering / Harrison Brunicke
The most interesting development might be Nick Robertson opening up camp on Sidney Crosby’s wing.
In a possible similar vein for breaking up existing combos, Kris Letang (Team 2) was apart from Sam Girard in a split of a pairing that was seen last year. Newcomer Kaeden Korczak skated with Girard in what will be interesting to see how long those two stay together. Interestingly, Ryan Graves was paired with a likely AHL player in Chase Pietila and the old PickNicke combo of Owen Pickering and Harrison Brunicke worked together on day one.
Team 2
A lot of heavy hitters on the blueline ended up in Team 2, and some initial questions were answered in terms of placement. Declan Carlile got the first look today with Erik Karlsson, answering that first question of who Karlsson’s new partner would be. How sticky that combination will remain is another situation to watch. Kris Letang skated with Trevor van Riemsdyk with the newcomer on his off-side.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Carlile, who took a shot and apparently shook it off.
Ben Kindel also was in some pain, though he too shook it off and returned to practice.
The full lines:
Egor Chinakhov -Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Andrei Kuzmenko – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen
Rutger McGroarty – Blake Lizotte – Bryan Rust
Oliver Okuliar – David Gustafsson – Mikhail Ilyin
Declan Carlile / Erik Karlsson
Trevor van Riemsyk / Kris Letang
Jake Livanavage / Ilya Solovyov
Caleb Jones / Phil Kemp
The first two forward lines look about game-ready, should the team want to go in that direction. Surely we’re seeing Koivunen get a strong opportunity to state his case for sticking in the NHL. So too might McGroarty, albeit in a different fashion to not be playing on a standard type of line, at least it was also with two players that figure to be opening night staples.
Team 3
This group has a lot of 2026-27 players who will be in Juniors, perhaps the ECHL and maybe the AHL…And also Elmer Soderblom. There’s always the risk of reading too much into day one placement, but Soderblom sticks out like a sore thumb with this group and it certainly is noticeable that he did not find a spot with one of the first two groups that have a bunch of NHL players. Then again, this is also where one can’t read too much into the first day. Soderblom’s placement could be as simple as showing up late.
We’ll have to see if he earns a spot tomorrow with a more appropriate group.
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That’s it for Day 1, now we’ll see what if anything changes for practice tomorrow.
Some highlights/key takeaways to boil it down to small bites:
- Carlile gets the first look with Karlsson
- van Riemsdyk and Letang form a righty-righty pairing
- Girard goes with Korczak
- Robertson makes his start with Crosby
- The ice-stretching line of Chinakhov-Novak-Malkin is put back together
- Koivunen gets a look with Kuzmenko+Kindel
- McGroarty finds a spot with Rust and Lizotte
- Dewar gets Lapierre and Brazeau
- Carlile and Kindel appear to dodge injury
- Soderblom was late, demoted to AHL group
All in all, besides the last note, there’s nothing too unorthodox or unexpected about the first placements today. A lot of unpredictable elements given all the choices, now the team will have to see how things sort out and what adjustments will be happening in the future – and just how quickly some of those changes start. As we see almost every year early in the preseason, what is in place today isn’t always going to hold for as long as how it will be tomorrow. But you gotta start somewhere and this is where the Pens have elected to open up.
There’s two more days of practice coming up before a day off on Sunday and then the first preseason games are already at hand on Monday and Tuesday.
