\u201cI don\u2019t know if I have that mastered yet, but going to work on it,\u201d Ruff said. \u201c\u2026 Just trying to keep everybody involved, and that\u2019ll be probably the biggest part of the numbers we have. The guys that haven\u2019t played or are not in the lineup right now have been a big part of getting us to where we\u2019ve gotten to, and I have a lot of respect for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consider forwards Josh Dunne and Tyson Kozak, who\u2019ve played impactful two-way hockey whenever they\u2019ve slotted into the fourth line. Or defenseman Michael Kesselring, whose game was progressing nicely after earlier injuries; now, he\u2019s eagerly awaiting to get back in the lineup. Or veteran trade pickups Tanner Pearson and Luke Schenn, who\u2019ve played one and two games, respectively, since the deadline.<\/p>\n
Timmins has missed 36 games since breaking his leg in December. When healthy, he was a stalwart on the league\u2019s best penalty kill, and he averaged more than two shot blocks per game at all strengths. He\u2019s just about ready to re-enter the lineup \u2013 or be available to, at least.<\/p>\n
With 13 games still remaining until the playoffs, those six could all get some chances down the stretch. In the meantime, it\u2019s a collective effort to keep them game ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe keep really close tabs on their practice numbers and how much extra to get them and how much work they\u2019ve got to do in the gym,\u201d Ruff explained. \u201cGuys that don\u2019t play are doing a lot of extra work. Guys that don\u2019t play a lot in the game, they have to do extra work after games to catch up to the guys that did play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to give our strength staff a great big thank you, because they\u2019ve kept their hands on all these guys, game in and game out and practice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t know if I have that mastered yet, but going to work on it,\u201d Ruff said. \u201c\u2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-536473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536473","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=536473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}