The Pittsburgh Penguins went back to work yesterday holding their first team activities since the players were able to take off for a few days on the bye week. Tomorrow they will play against the Tampa Bay Lightning at 5PM. The game was originally scheduled to be sooner in the day, but was moved to accommodate the Pittsburgh Steelers playoff game which will be in the early afternoon.
As we head towards the second half of the regular season here is a snapshot of how each member of the team has been playing so far this year using Dom Luszczyszyn's individual game score metric
You can find Dom's individual game scores for the Penguins and every other NHL team at his website which you can find here
As expected the team is in pretty good shape. They have a very strong group of forwards. Use the color code to assist. The bluer the better. Sidney Crosby has the best score in the entire league. Conor Sheary is working towards a nice raise from his current $667,000 salary. Chris Kunitz remains a solid contributor. Eric Fehr is a replacement level player and is really the only player that needs replaced.
Brian Dumoulin is currently out for weeks with a broken jaw, but it hasn't been a great season for him prior to the injury. Olli Maatta is also experiencing a down year. While they haven't been as good as you'd expect they definitely aren't replacement level players and in previous samples both have shown the ability to play much better. Justin Schultz has been awesome and Ian Cole has picked up the slack for Dumoulin/Maatta. Kris Letang is still Kris Letang. Trevor Daley has been meh and unless he takes a lot less money it probably makes sense for the team to move on from him at the conclusion of this season.
As far as how the team looks heading into game action tomorrow all players are accounted for at practice with the exception of Matt Murray and Brian Dumoulin who are injured. The team recalled Chad Ruhwedel and Tristan Jarry from WB/S a few days ago. Tom Kuhnhackl was skating at the left wing spot on the Malkin line, but that was because Hagelin was ill. Kuhnhackl skating was a good sign that he is ready to go for game action and Mike Sullivan confirmed that today by saying he is indeed ready to go.
The 2009 Stanley Cup Champion Penguins are going to be celebrated tomorrow. Some of the former alum have arrived in town
Oh hey 2009 team! 👋🼠pic.twitter.com/8CSgNdP2Fq
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 7, 2017
Reunited and it feels so good. pic.twitter.com/IlkbWPj6Dz
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 7, 2017
The boys are back in town. pic.twitter.com/hsu6GWAIN9
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 7, 2017
@Max25talbot good to see you buddy pic.twitter.com/FRKvunkXhz
— Kristopher Letang (@Letang_58) January 7, 2017
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Brand new Hockey Hurts Podcast discusses Columbus' tremendous winning streak, the 1992-93 Penguins, and also review the playoff picture for both conferences. You can find that here
Thanks for reading!