Friday Practice Report
Coming off last night’s 3-2 loss, the Pittsburgh Penguins are back on the ice this morning as the team prepares for the Montreal Canadiens Saturday nght.
There are no changes to the top-4 lines
Winger Arron Asham is not skating today and will likely remain out of the lineup Saturday night.
Goaltender Patrick Killeen was officially re-assigned back to Wheeling this morning.
Lines
Kunitz – Crosby – Dupuis
Tangradi – Comrie – Malkin
Cooke – Letestu – Kennedy
Rupp – Talbot – Adams
Extra: Godard

Front Net Presence/Center Drive

Getting traffic to the net has been a priority for the Penguins coaching staff and during the 1st half of practice, the Penguins focus was on a front net presence and their center drive.

The team spent a good 15 minutes of one drill getting pucks to the net from the point with a player in front causing a screen/redeflections.
The team then went immediately to 3-on-2 rushes with a backchecker where the focus was on the Penguins “center drive”.

D-Men Rotation

Deryk Engelland opened up practice with Alex Goligoski as the third pairing but as practice progressed Ben Lovejoy worked his way into the rotation.
The top-2 pairings remained the same with Orpik – Michalek, Martin-Letang.