Jonathan Bombulie stories, Page 33

The Pittsburgh Penguins traded away a center early Thursday morning, but it wasn’t the center who has found himself at the center of trade rumors lately. Derick Brassard continues to operate status quo in his third-line position. Rather, depth player Derek Grant was shipped to the Anaheim Ducks for Joseph...

The Pittsburgh Penguins have been playing some pretty good hockey since turning their season around at the beginning of December. They’re 14-5-1 in their past 20 games. They deserve no worse than a solid B-plus on their report card. Late Tuesday night, they got an up-close look at what an...

Hal Gill looks like a penalty killer. He was a 6-foot-7, 244-pound battleship who could stand at the faceoff dot and reach the boards with his stick. Ian Cole looks like a penalty killer. With a full beard and a few missing teeth, he’ll stick his face in front of...

In the building where they battled for the Stanley Cup three years ago, two of the NHL’s hottest teams will meet when the Pittsburgh Penguins face the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night at SAP Center. The teams have traveled remarkably similar paths this season. On Dec. 1, the Sharks...

The next time the Pittsburgh Penguins’ top power-play unit steps on the ice, it will include five players with a total of 1,330 career goals and nine Stanley Cup rings between them. This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel,...

Carrying a six-game scoring streak into Tuesday night’s meeting with the San Jose Sharks, Pittsburgh Penguins winger Jake Guentzel was named the NHL’s third star of week Monday. Guentzel had five goals and an assist in three games last week, including a hat trick in a 7-4 Penguins victory over...

Welcome to the 2018-19 Pittsburgh Penguins season, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Jeff Carter had a goal and two assists, Anze Kopitar scored twice and Jonathan Quick made 38 saves, leading the Los Angeles Kings to a 5-2 victory over the Penguins late...

The Norris Trophy, given annually to the top defenseman in the NHL, is decided by a vote of hockey writers, not players. But if Pittsburgh Penguins center Derick Brassard had a ballot, he would have filled it out sometime in the late evening hours Dec. 12. He had just watched...

While the Pittsburgh Penguins were ripping off eight straight wins through late December and early January, they were aided and abetted by a red-hot goaltender. It was easy to wonder what those results would have looked like if Matt Murray hadn’t been playing out of his mind. Well, there’s a...

While Matt Murray was sidelined for a month with a lower-body injury earlier this season, Casey DeSmith stepped up and prevented the Pittsburgh Penguins from falling into the abyss. On Friday, he was rewarded for his efforts. DeSmith signed a three-year extension with an average annual salary of $1.25 million,...

Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang will join teammate Sidney Crosby at the NHL All-Star Game after all. The league announced the winners of fan balloting to determine the last man on the rosters for each of the four divisions Friday afternoon. Letang won the vote for the Metropolitan Division, coming...

Pittsburgh Penguins winger Patric Hornqvist is sidelined with a concussion for the second time this season, coach Mike Sullivan said Thursday. Hornqvist was injured when he took a puck to the face in the first period of Tuesday night’s game against the Florida Panthers. It’s the fourth documented concussion for...

Daniel Sprong is a simple, 21-year-old Dutchman just trying to score a few goals in the cruel world of professional hockey. It’s not his fault the Pittsburgh Penguins got off to a poor start to this season. Marcus Pettersson is a humble, 22-year-old Swede just trying to establish himself as...

When the Pittsburgh Penguins open a five-game western road trip Friday night in Anaheim, they will be looking to bounce back from a 5-1 victory over the Florida Panthers. It’s a lot like last week, when the Penguins rebounded from a 7-2 win over the New York Rangers to defeat...

Pittsburgh Penguins star Evgeni Malkin donated almost $60,000 to victims of a New Year’s Eve apartment explosion in his hometown of Magnitogorsk, Russia, his former team announced Wednesday. According to a statement released by Magnitogorsk Metallurg of the KHL, Malkin gave 4 million rubles to a fund established to collect...

Bryan Rust already has a job, one he’s been doing quite well lately, but if the Pittsburgh Penguins needed a mascot to represent how their season’s gone so far, he’d be a prime candidate. When the team was struggling, mired in the depths of the Eastern Conference standings, Rust had...

Pittsburgh Penguins winger Zach Aston-Reese will miss at least a week and likely more with an injury suffered during a 5-1 win over Florida on Tuesday night. The Penguins put Aston-Reese on injured reserve Wednesday after he was injured in a third-period fight with Colton Sceviour. The IR designation means...

The Pittsburgh Penguins saw their eight-game winning streak end with a 5-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night, in part, because of an ineffective power play. They went 0 for 3 with the man-advantage, including failing to score on 71 seconds of five-on-three time late in the first...

When discussing a victory over the Atlanta Falcons earlier this season, Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield said he had a strong performance because he woke up that morning feeling dangerous. It became a popular social media meme and was plastered on T-shirts sold around Northeast Ohio. Pittsburgh Penguins center Derick...

During their now-completed eight-game winning streak, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals and Western Conference favorite Winnipeg Jets. They won low-scoring nail-biters and high-scoring shootouts. On Sunday night, they finally ran into the game they couldn’t win. Dylan Strome broke a third-period tie, leading the Chicago...

The Pittsburgh Penguins recalled defenseman Chad Ruhwedel from a five-game conditioning stint with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL on Sunday. It was a successful stay for Ruhwedel, who had one goal, four assists and a plus-8 rating. Having slipped to eighth on the depth chart, Ruhwedel hasn’t played in an NHL...

Chris Kunitz’s trip into Pittsburgh wasn’t just another road game with the Chicago Blackhawks, his fifth team in 15 NHL seasons. It wasn’t even special because it was the 990th of his career. This one was different because he is back with the Penguins, at least as an opponent, where...

During the depths of the team’s early season despair, Pittsburgh Penguins winger Patric Hornqvist had one firm belief he never wavered from. “One shift’s going to turn the season around for us,” he said Nov. 16 while the Penguins were in the midst of losing nine of 10 games. Less...

There’s a dirty little secret about the Pittsburgh Penguins’ current eight-game winning streak that coach Mike Sullivan probably doesn’t want his players to think about. The team is playing its best hockey of the season during a stretch where it’s had the least amount of practice time. When the Penguins...