Letang latest defensman forced out with an injury
NEW YORK — The Penguins blue line already was hurting when they hit the road for a four-game road swing against the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. Then, it took two of the biggest body blows yet.
Kris Letang, who was injured Saturday in game against the Rangers, sat out the series finale Monday night with a lower-body injury. Coach Mike Sullivan said the five-time All-Star defenseman still is being evaluated. He’s considered day to day.
The injury comes just days after his partner on the top pairing, Brian Dumoulin, suffered a lower-body injury Tuesday in a game in Boston. He was placed on injured reserve Monday. Sullivan classified his status previously as “week to week.”
With Letang and Dumoulin out, the lineup Monday against the Rangers was almost like a preview of the future. Rookie Pierre-Olivier Joseph skated alongside second-year right-hander John Marino. Those two were paired together in the Penguins prospects challenge in 2019. Now, out of necessity, they’ve been thrust into leading roles with just 70 combined games of experience under their belts.
For Joseph, in particular, it’s been a meteoric rise for a player who started the year as the fifth left-handed defenseman on the depth chart. Injuries created an opportunity. To this point, the newcomer hasn’t looked out of place. He tallied three primary assists Saturday in a comeback, including on Sidney Crosby’s game-winner in overtime.
“We’re really excited about his progress,” Sullivan said of Joseph. “He obviously had a real good game for us [Saturday night]. But we also understand this is a hard league and he’s a young player.”
In total, the club now is missing five of its eight blueliners from the Game 1 roster, including all four of its top left-handers.
To fill the numerous holes, the Penguins Wednesday signed Yannick Weber, a 12-year NHL veteran who drove 16 hours through a snowstorm to meet the team in New York. He took that path, in part, so that he wouldn’t have to complete a COVID-19 quarantine as he would have if he took a commercial flight.
The latest injury also reopened the door for another start for 30-year-old Kevin Czuczman. He played his first NHL game in seven seasons Thursday night in Boston before losing his spot in the lineup due to Weber’s signing.
Behind a patchwork blue and subpar goaltending, the Penguins entered Monday giving up the third-most goals per game in the league.
“I think it’s a full team game, regardless of who’s on the ice,” forward Brandon Tanev said. ”Everyone needs to come together as a unit, communicating, making things easier for one another and playing a full 200foot game that consists of every player working together.”
In addition to the Letang and Dumoulin injuries, Mike Matheson had an upper-body injury in the second game of the season that the club said initially would keep him out “longer term.” He has been skating recently in a non-contact jersey in a group setting. Marcus Pettersson was blindsided by Washington Capitals winger T.J. Oshie Jan. 19 and is on injured reserve with an upper-body injury. Juuso Riikola also left that Jan. 19 game early against the Capitals and is currently on longterm injured reserve.
Deeper down the depth chart, right-hander Zach Trotman, would have been a leading candidate to earn a start, as the club’s ninth or 10th defenseman. But he, too, is out through at least mid-February after having meniscus surgery.
Letang, 33, has tallied three points through his first eight-plus games. He was still searching for his first goal of the season and had registered a minus-1 rating.
Change of plans
The Penguins weeklong road trip was extended a little bit longer than anticipated, as snow piled up in New York.
Team sources told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the Penguins were planning to fly back to Pittsburgh after their game Monday night against the New York Rangers. With the overwhelming majority of flights canceled out of the major airports in the area, the Penguins now plan to travel Tuesday morning.
That would have been tough, with a game scheduled against the New Jersey Devils Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena. But with 10 Devils player on the COVID protocol list, that two-game series was postponed.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio declared a winter weather emergency and closed all streets to nonessential travel Monday morning after a half-foot of snow accumulated in parts of the city overnight. The storm was expected to continue through Monday evening and into Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service was predicting a total of 20 inches, which would make it the eighth-biggest snowstorm in city history.
Seeing ghosts
With his long hair dangling and eyes wide open, Tanev’s comical headshot went viral. His brother Christopher, a defenseman on the Calgary Flames, joked that Brandon must have seen a ghost or something.
“I did actually see a ghost,” Brandon said. “It was walking behind the gentleman that was taking our pictures. It kind of caught me off guard, I haven’t seen one of those things yet. It was pretty rare to see that.”