Practice groups for the day, the only change is Elmer Soderblom moving up to Team 2 after spending a day with the outside Team 3. Mikhail Ilyin bumps over to that group in Soderblom’s place.
Team 2
Team 2 was the first group on the ice today, with one change in placement from yesterday. Bryan Rust and Ville Koivunen swapped spots, Soderblom worked in on the outside with AHL players as he gets slowly brought back from his timing faux pas of showing up late yesterday.
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Andrei Kuzmenko – Ben Kindel – Bryan Rust Ville Koivunen – Blake Lizotte – Rutger McGroarty Elmer Soderblom – David Gustafsson – Oliver Okuliar
Declan Carlile / Erik Karlsson
Trevor van Riemsdyk / Kris Letang
Jake Livanavage / Ilya Solovyov
Caleb Jones / Philip Kemp
It’ll be interesting to see how far the Penguins go with a talent split of having Rust away from his typical spot lined up on the right of Sidney Crosby. This current way is a classic training camp experiment to see how the team looks with some balance. Most of the final decision likely comes down to how much Nick Robertson can hold up his end of the bargain on the top line – if he can’t perform that heavy lift then the option to move Rust back starts to make a lot of sense. For now, very intriguing to consider the balance Rust could help bring from a ‘third’ line and add an extra layer to the attack.
On its face, going from playing with Ben Kindel yesterday to Blake Lizotte today could sound like a demotion for Koivunen. However, he’s got to show he can stick somewhere, and arguably the one open spot to win this year for forwards will be a fourth line position next to Lizotte and Connor Dewar. Koivunen still is getting a great opportunity to show he can work there and be that option.
Defensively, teams want to let things gel and get a chance to come together, barring outright disasters or complete obvious reasons to change it stands to reason that the new partners for Karlsson and Letang will be in their spots for much of preseason – if not all the way to the starting line for opening night.
Malkin talked about how he’s not thinking about retirement and only focusing on trying to help the team win this season.
Team 1
The main group saw it’s most important line stay together with Nick Robertson sticking with Sidney Crosby and then some new combinations for the rest of the group.
Nick Robertson – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell
Filip Hallander – Hendrix Lapierre – Justin Brazeau
Tristan Broz – Connor Dewar – Atley Calvert
Tanner Howe – Bill Zonnon – Avery Hayes
Sam Girard / Kaeden Korczak
Owen Pickering / Harrison Brunicke
Ryan Graves / Chase Pietila
Tomas Galvas / Finn Harding
Lapierre and Brazeau remained together today, in perhaps a unique co-operation/competition (co-opitition?) as they look to find a spot either in the lineup or on the NHL roster. It’s also interesting to see Calvert stay in a semi-premier type of role alongside Connor Dewar. Calvert was initially scheduled to be on Team 3 prior to Soderblom showing up late – Calvert seems to be making the most of the opportunity to get a little more of a spotlight and shine on himself as a result.
Otherwise the defense, much like the other group, was the exact same pairings today as it was yesterday with the team having it in mind to probably see how these groups can gel through at least the early part of training camp, if not a little longer.
Team 3
Well this team definitely practiced but to much less fanfare than the other groups with NHL and high-end AHL players found on the other groups. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these players might get a look in an exhibition game on Monday or Tuesday before likely most of them will be sent back to their junior clubs or down to the AHL training camp sometime later next week.
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Unlike yesterday when Kindel and Declan Carlile had small injury scares, it looked like everyone got through day two without any hiccups or injury concerns, which is always nice. The Pens have one more day of the three practice groups tomorrow before an off day on Sunday and then gears shift slightly with the first game days coming up early next week on Monday and Tuesday.
