{"id":351362,"date":"2025-12-16T03:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T03:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351362\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T03:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T03:46:07","slug":"east-notes-mcdonagh-kane-pieniniemi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351362\/","title":{"rendered":"East Notes: McDonagh, Kane, Pieniniemi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Lightning have had to manage this season with a large portion of key defensemen injured, but it appears one important veteran is closing in on a return to the ice. Lightning team reporter Benjamin Pierce relayed word<\/a> from Lightning practice this morning that Ryan McDonagh<\/a> skated today in a regular jersey, a key milestone in his recovery from his undisclosed injury. McDonagh remains on IR, where he has been since early November.<\/p>\n

McDonagh, 36, played in 15 games this season before his injury, scoring six points. The 1,025-game veteran has missed Tampa Bay\u2019s last 17 games due to his injury, an absence that has forced the Lightning to rely on less accomplished defensemen such as Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous<\/a> and Emil Lilleberg<\/a>. D\u2019Astous especially has acquitted himself well, but expect McDonagh to resume his regular top-four role once he\u2019s healthy. In 15 games this season, McDonagh averaged just over 20 minutes of ice time per game and leads the team in short-handed time on ice per game.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n

The Athletic\u2019s Max Bultman reported today<\/a> that Detroit Red Wings veteran Patrick Kane<\/a> \u201ctweaked something\u201d upper-body during Detroit\u2019s game against the Chicago Blackhawks, and is out for at least the next two games. Kane, a future Hall of Fame winger, is a key offensive producer for the Red Wings. He has 23 points in 24 games this season and as one might expect plays a significant role on the club\u2019s power play. The Red Wings slotted John Leonard<\/a> into Kane\u2019s vacated second-line right winger role, per MLive\u2019s Ansar Khan<\/a>. Leonard was an AHL All-Star last season and has scored 19 goals and 29 points in 20 games for the Grand Rapids Griffins this year.
\nThe Pittsburgh Penguins lifted their suspension of prospect Emil Pieniniemi<\/a>, according to Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports<\/a>, as a result of the blueliner\u2019s newfound willingness to report to the club\u2019s ECHL affiliate, the Wheeling Nailers. Per Rorabaugh, while the Penguins presented Pieniniemi with a development plan, the player \u201cdisagreed with that plan\u201d and elected to train in his native Finland, with Liiga club Karpat, rather than play in the ECHL. Now, it appears Pieniniemi will report to the ECHL and begin his season there. A 2023 third-round pick, Pieniniemi was ranked the No. 20 prospect in the Penguins\u2019 system before the season by Elite Prospects<\/a>. While the ECHL isn\u2019t typically seen as a prime league to develop skater prospects, Penguins GM Kyle Dubas has shown an increased level of willingness to send prospects to the ECHL, dating back to his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto\u2019s 2017 first-round pick Timothy Liljegren<\/a> played an ECHL game in 2018-19 and the Penguins have had defensive prospect Finn Harding<\/a>, who the club reportedly thinks highly of, play seven games for Wheeling so far in 2025-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Lightning have had to manage this season with a large portion of key defensemen injured,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1786,21138,385,32703,1790,22152,99,4819],"class_list":["post-351362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-emil-pieniniemi","tag-nhl","tag-patrick-kane","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-ryan-mcdonagh","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-lightning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}