It’s rarely a good sign when a team on a road trip sends a player back home to be evaluated for an injury.
Will the Penguins now be down one of their most important wingers for some time?
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The Penguins are unsure how much time winger Patric Hornqvist will miss but the team on Sunday felt it was necessary to send Hornqvist back to Pittsburgh for evaluation due to an upper body injury.
This will be Hornqvist’s second stint on the shelf this season, after missing the start of the season with a wrist injury.
Hornqvist’ rugged style of play as he turns 31 in January has been one reason of pause in the Penguins organization to offer significant term on a new deal.
Whether Hornqvist misses just a couple games or 10-15 games, this is a big blow to a team that has been atrocious in scoring at even strength this season and whose coaching staff feels the team as a whole isn’t creating enough net-front traffic, as there’s no replacing Hornqvist in how good he is in getting into the sight lines of opposing goaltenders.
He’s also been one of the Penguins most productive forwards.
If the Hornqvist injury becomes more than day-to-day, now the microscope will be on the Penguins in regards to what they do with the lineup and any roster moves.
For tonight against Colorado, Josh Archibald and Tom Kuhnhackl will both draw into the lineup if Dominik Simon is unable to play due to an illness.
A long-term Hornqvist injury, though, will bring even more outside noise to the Penguins needing to recall Daniel Sprong.
But would they?
Sprong has had an up and down season with 15 goals and 7 assists in 25 games. However, he’s been red-hot of late with 6 goals and 8 points in his last seven games.
Penguins GM Jim Rutherford has been leaning on Assistant GM Bill Guerin on when the time is right to bring Sprong up. Guerin has been among those working the closest with Sprong to improve his play away from the puck and other areas the Penguins want to see improvement before making a call-up.
After making Sprong a healthy scratch a few weeks ago and bumping him down the lineup, Guerin and others have been pushing Sprong really hard to see how he would react and the organization has been impressed with the mental toughness Sprong is showing, a source says.
The sense is Pittsburgh wants to feel comfortable enough with Sprong that when they call him up, he’s going to stick in the NHL. They don’t want a situation of going back-and-forth.
There seems to be some movement for Sprong over the past couple weeks but is enough yet to satisfy the Penguins?
We’ll see on that.
— The elephant in the room for the Penguins right now is the Ryan Reaves experiment.
It’s just not working and the coaching staff is handcuffed with what sources say pretty much is a mandate from Jim Rutherford wanting Reaves in the lineup every game.
Saturday’s game vs Arizona was another situation where Pittsburgh was forced to play shorthanded in tight game at forward as the coaching staff obviously doesn’t feel Reaves brings much of anything to the table when Pittsburgh is involved in close games.
Reaves played just 3:50 and had one shift in the second period and one shift in the third period.
Jim Rutherford believes Reaves’ presence has deterred things against some of the Penguins’ star talent.
What Reaves has deterred is the Penguins able to put any resemblance of a scoring 4th line on the ice or a line the coaching staff can trust in competitive games.
Pittsburgh could easily move Reaves out West, where he’s more suited to play a heavy game, but for now the Penguins don’t seem interested in admitting a mistake and moving on.
In St. Louis, Reaves was getting 12-13 minutes a night in the final quarter of last season. Over his final 19 regular season games, Reaves played 10 minutes or more in 16 of the 19, sometimes seeing 13-14 minutes a night on a few occasions. Reaves also played at least nine minutes in seven of 11 playoff games with the Blues last post-season.
There’s little chance Reaves in a contract year is happy with his role either and no way he will be content sitting in the press box.
If Pittsburgh comes to their senses to go in a different direction and take Reaves out of the lineup as a regular, we’d more likely see a trade rather quickly than Reaves just becoming the 13th forward and being fine with it. [/hide]
Well coach would healthy scratch reeves in a heart beat but. Since GM brought reeves for a 1st round pick they need to make this clown at least 40 games so people don’t get pissed about that 1st round trade. But then again it’s Pittsburgh bandwagon’s here won’t even get mad if he was scratched after 10 games in season it wouldnt bother them giving away a first round pick as long as they are riding hard in Crosby and malkin dickks they are fine
You’re one to talk about riding Crosby’s dick… he could set a bag of kittens on fire and you’d blame someone else. End of the day giving up a first for Reaves is not made all good by forcing him into the line up. It’s an inability to admit they fucked up period! I get why they do it but it doesn’t mean it’s the right move anymore!
Maybe Reaves reads D’s stuff. Best game of the year.
This defense suck. Murray has played an unbelievable game. I blame Jacques Martin for this defense.
Penguins are just not fun hockey to watch right now
I’ll get crucified here….but sid lost his bf Kunitz. Locker room clown Fleury was replaced by Murray who has the personality of an 80 year old man. Where is the fun in that locker room? I’ll go 1 step further, now that the team is not winning, how long before they turn on Sullivan? He’ll finish the year, but if they miss the playoffs or bounced in rnd 1, they better not start flat next year, or you’ll hear Sid and Geno “not having fun” and we know what that does to coaches.
The glove hand again.
Excellent observation.
Is guerin ever happy with a young players work wthic on/off the ice? He’s a dik.
If they’re only playing Reeves 3-4 minutes then they should trade him.
Last I checked he sucked and everybody knew he sucked when the trade went down.
So you are basing he sucks on what? LOL
He sucked in st loius and has done the same here. His skating blows, he has no hands or shot. He can fight and skates better than Goddard. I want a 4th liner than can skate and kill penalties and bang bodies. Kuhnhackle, Rowney and Sheahan need to be the 4th line.
On the fact that he can’t fucken play, period. He’s never been able too and it’s painfully evident now
“D” love the assignation attempt on Reaves. Now puts me more in his corner. Maybe you haven’t noticed this year a lot less crap after a whistle. Maybe the NHL cleaned up its act. NOT!!!. Seriously that the whole game in not the current action.
*assassination and Reaves fucken blows. Anyone defending him at this point has made it clear they don’t know what the fuck they are watching
Oh and score for tonight….2-1 Pens…Pens score 2 cause the Avs get a own goal LOL
Trade Letang for a Center….Trade Reaves for a 3rd Pairing D and revamp fourth line and lets go!