The penguins returned on Monday, having another intra-squad scrimmage. Sidney Crosby missed his second consecutive day of work since he apparently suffered some sort of minor problem on Saturday. The lines to start were as follows:
Black team:
Jake Guentzel – Evan Rodrigues – Conor Sheary
Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Bryan Rust
Brian Dumoulin / Kris Letang
Jack Johnson / Justin Schultz
Matt Murray
Team Gold:
Patrick Marleau – Jared McCann – Sam Lafferty
Zach Aston-Reese – Teddy Blueger – Brandon Tanev
Marcus Pettersson / John Marino
Kevin Czuczman / Chad Ruhwedel
Tristan Jarry
Scoring period one
“It doesn’t take long for the black team to dominate again.” On the opening turn, Jake Guentzel skated the puck in the neutral zone and shot a perfect pass to Evan Rodrigues, who walks down the main street with no defense in sight. Rodrigues pointed backwards and raised the top shelf of the puck over Tristan Jarry. 1-0 Team Black
Entering. Going forward.
Evan Rodrigues connects where Sidney Crosby played in the last scrimmage and scores early. The black team takes the 1-0 lead. pic.twitter.com/TSFcr93C4u
– Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) July 20, 2020
—The Gold team scores their first goal. Kris Letang passes the ice badly and Sam Lafferty intercepts. Lafferty feeds Patrick Marleau with a long pass on the goal line and Marleau can do it with Matt Murray. 1-1 game.
—In the second period (check the notes), Jack Johnson does something good? Shoot a laser beyond Jarry’s glove. 2-1 Team Black
—Chad Ruhwedel finds a loose rebound disc and scores from inside to score for Team Gold at 2.
A sweet long pass from Marcus Pettersson puts Brandon Tanev and Teddy Blueger in a 2 on 1. Tanev gets a pass through Johnson’s defense and Blueger ends it in front of the net. 3-2 Team Gold
As the clock ticks towards the end, Black Team ties it at 3. Marleau swings off a shot by John Marino and practice ends.
Some random thoughts
“Rodrigues’ hands in full effect, at one point he did a good job using his feet to retrieve a pass from Guentzel, and another deke gives Jarry a chance.” This time he saves, but so far Rodrigues has a lot of jump and looks great out there
As usual now, Jared McCann worked with the higher power playgroup. Jason Zucker did the same in Crosby’s absence. Those two joined the three staples (Malkin, Letang, Guentzel) with today’s core group
—A very interesting move in which the Pens worked twice in an offensive zone confrontation victory, with McCann working in space and receiving a short pass from Letang and then shooting from a distance. That said, it didn’t seem like he had a chance to work at any point, McCann doesn’t really have a tremendous wrister from a distance.
—Marleau, Sheary, Rust, Schultz and Marino were the second power play.
—Rodrigues, curiously, was working as a pain killer. It’s an eye to the future, if Rodrigues is playing in the playoffs this summer, he is more likely to be a PKer
Malkin increased his intensity a little later in practice, but didn’t seem as laser-focused as Saturday. Totally zero cause for concern. The same goes for Letang, who made a bad pass and is not going at full speed either.
However, I did like the day for the Pettersson-Marino couple, especially when faced with big guns. High task but a good way to throw those guys into the fire.
—It’s fun to see Sheary and Guentzel in this format, too. It’s a practice game, not a lot of physics, intensity, or battles, perfect for smaller players to stand out even more. And clearly a 40-goal guy like Guentzel doesn’t need all of that to explode, but it helps even more when he’s there. Sheary is a wonder to see, his hands look great in this place and setting and he is doing work all over the ice. Hopefully, it will build on it and continue as the season continues to rise.
