Penguins/NHL
The Penguins just wrapped up their morning practice at Mellon Arena which began around 10:30 a.m.
Very interesting line changes in today’s practice
Miroslav Satan skated with Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora on the second line, alternating with Ruslan Fedotenko.
Satan, Fedotenko and Sykora alternated on Malkin’s wing throughout the practice.
Yesterday, Satan was on the annual 5th playoff line and even took a shift or two on D as a fill in.
As I mentioned on Friday, Bylsma wants to give him a look in a top 6 role. Bylsma just experimenting? The rest of the lines were
Kunitz – Crosby – Guerin
Cooke – Staal – Kennedy
Dupuis – Talbot – Godard/Adams
Adams or Godard in game 1?Yesterday Eric Godard took the majority of the reps with the 4th line. Based on what I saw today, it was about even.
Both players were alternating throughout, during the course of breakouts and D-Zone drills.
Strong Emphasis on D-Zone
For the second consecutive day, the Penguins showed a strong emphasis on d-zone coverage.
There was good intensity and Satan hit Malkin with a beautiful back door pass from the right corner in one situation.
Penguins worked on a lot of cycling and getting pucks to the net from their pointmen
Boucher has strong practicePhilippe Boucher had a strong practice. He’s been working very hard over the past week. He was showing great gap control today in d-zone drills.
Crosby at full health, this time around.While Flyers continue to talk about how this time around they will be at full health, so will Penguins star forward Sidney Crosby.
Crosby led the Penguins in scoring during their Stanley Cup run last spring but he was playing at 80% with a bad ankle.
After battling some injuries this season, over the past month, Crosby has been the Penguins best player and feels he is playing his best hockey of the year at the right time.
more to come
