It turned out to be an eventful morning skate for the Penguins today ahead of their game against the Carolina Hurricanes tonight. The team provided a glut of injury updates, including the announcement that Justin Brazeau will be out for a while.
Girard has missed a practice in his short stint with Pittsburgh while managing a minor lower body injury, he was not on the ice for the morning skate with what is now described as an upper body ailment. Hayes hasn’t been listed on the injury reports previously, but he would have had to be injured (or maybe “injured”) in order to have forward Ville Koivunen up on an emergency recall to set the Pens as needing a forward.
With all that bad news, there was some good news too. Sidney Crosby took the morning skate, though working on a line with the suspended Evgeni Malkin and the injured Kevin Hayes. There hasn’t been an exact date announced yet for when Crosby might return, but he’s now participated in multiple events and obviously being with the team on the ice is a good sign that the captain is nearing a return to play at some point during the five-game road trip.
Overall, the Penguins tonight might be lining up like this if the morning skate holds.
Ryan Graves (personal and unavailable this morning) is said to be ready to play if needed, though in recent games the Pens have opted to dress both Ilya Solovyov and Connor Clifton ahead of Graves at various times, so it remains to be seen if the team would decide to dress Graves for his first NHL game since January 27th.
Stuart Skinner was the first goalie to leave the practice, a reliable indicator that he will be starting tonight. Skinner will be looking to build on his previous start with the Pens against Carolina on December 30th, where the netminder stopped 27 of 28 shots in a 5-1 Pittsburgh win.