STOCKHOLM — Before Evgeni Malkin casually delivered some heavyweight quotes in the Pittsburgh Penguins locker room, coach Dan Muse had a few things he wanted to see as part of the 45-minute practice at Avicii Arena.

Interesting fact, the arena is part of a downtown Stockholm layout in which several buildings and artifacts are a scale replica of the solar system, and the bulbous arena represents the sun. The buildings lineup in a northern direction and are a 1:20 million scale.

Thursday, Muse kept most of his lineup in tact, though he admitted to tinkering to see how practice went.

On the blue line, it appears Connor Clifton will get a seat in favor of Matt Dumba, who skated with Ryan Graves. Clifton skated with Harrison Brunicke, as the extra pairing.

Dumba has played in just five of the Penguins first 17 games with one assist and a minus-1 rating.

However, in the bottom six forward slots, the number of players is still greater than the number of spots. Danton Heinen watched line rushes from center ice, but Philip Tomasino mixed into the third line duty, sometimes with Kevin Hayes at center at Ville Koivunen on the left wing.

Joona Koppanen has been shuffling in the Penguins lineup, from the third and fourth lines … and the third line with Hayes and Koivunen. Koppanen was the Penguins most recent call-up, arriving last Thursday. The 6-foot-5 forward is a natural center but can also play on the wing.

“That’s a good base for his game–just that defensive responsibility and you can trust him and his ability to to kill penalties,” Muse said. “I still think he’s a guy that there could be even more on the offensive side. (We like his ability to get in and and disrupt plays on the forcheck and then recover pucks and create offense off of it. And his ability to get to the net and have that presence there and a strong stick and a s just strong presence in general at the net front.

In three games since his recall, Koppanen does not yet have a point but has won five of the 11 faceoffs that he’s stepped in for Heinen, who was playing center for the first time in his career.

Tomasino has been in and out of the lineup this season, but mostly out since the first few games of the season. In seven games, Tomasino has one assist.

“There can be a lot of trust (in Koppanen) from on the defensive side of things. He’s a guy who’s very responsible. He’s in good places. You know, like when he is playing center, he comes back, he defends hard, he’s got that long reach, and he can close space,” said Muse. “He’s a guy that for us, when we were making decisions, looking at we needed to fill out our roster due to injuries, he’s a guy who made a really good impression on our coaching staff (in training camp) and in his ability to kill penalties. And so that was something that we needed to have here just based on guys that were hurt.”

Muse didn’t commit to his lineup, but confirmed he wanted to see some forward combinations and pairs.

Ready?

After skating through some jet legs on Tuesday, the Penguins had an off day on Wednesday to see some sights, and also to get on a proper sleep schedule after a slightly less than 10-hour flight.

Now, it’s game time.

“I definitely feel a whole lot better than right when we got off the plane. I think it was definitely good to get that practice in (Tuesday), get those plane legs out,” said Bryan Rust. “But I think after we’ve gotten to be here for a couple of days and get acclimated to the time, I think it’s feeling like business as usual.”

The sites and sounds of the week has been amusing to some of the players. The Pittsburgh Penguins social media accounts have accompanied players on seveal sight-seeing trips, but the players are also amused by what’s going on inside their own locker room.

Fellow defensemen watched with amusement from across the room as mic booms hung near Erik Karlsson’s face and reporters closely gathered. The Swedish media kept Karlsson for what seemed like well over 10 minutes, despite Karlsson also holding a press conference on Tuesday.

Karlsson seemed to handle it all with good humor and grace.

From personal experience, the Swedish coffee packs a punch. The pleasant, full bodied rocket fuel caught a few of us on the trip by surprise, keeping a few awake well into the night … or morning.

Penguins fans may want to start their weekend early and take a half-day off work as the Penguins game against the Nashville Predators begins at 2 p.m. EST. The in-game experience might be a little different, too.

Penguins Lines

Bryan Rust-Sidney Crosby-Ben Kindel

Tommy Novak-Evgeni Malkin-Anthony Mantha

Ville Koivunen-Kevin Hayes-Joona Koppanen

Connor Dewar-Blake Lizotte-Philip Tomasino

Defense

Parker Wotherspoon-Erik Karlsson

Ryan Shea-Kris Letang

Ryan Graves-Matt Dumba

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