As Penguins' slump continues, Mike Sullivan weighs changes to lines

Near the end of Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan made a tweak to his top line, sending out Rickard Rakell in place of Bryan Rust with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel.

Shortly thereafter, the Maple Leafs scored their fifth and final goal of the game, with just over two minutes to play.

The struggles of the Penguins’ top line of late have been obvious, and, against the Maple Leafs, the trio of Crosby, Guentzel and Rust was mauled, going a combined minus-13 in the game.

Sullivan’s late-game tweak, naturally, has bred speculation as to whether Rakell can be expected to begin playing with Crosby and Guentzel once again. He started the year on their right wing.

“We’re trying to find combinations that can have success,” Sullivan said Wednesday. “We have options at our disposal. We talk about these things daily depending on how the team’s playing, certain lines are playing and certain people are playing.

“…We’re looking at all our options, and we’ll make decisions accordingly.”

With the Penguins (6-7-3) still stuck in a slump that has seen the team lose nine of its last 11 games, expect few personnel groupings to be nailed down.

Practice details

All Penguins were present at Wednesday’s practice in Cranberry, but the on-ice action was a bit different than usual, with Sullivan opting not to conduct any line work.

Instead, to start things off, he split the defensemen and forwards for positional drills.

Associate coach Todd Reirden led the defensemen in a puck-retrieval sequence staged on the corners near the goal line.

On the opposite end of the ice, skating and skills development coach Ty Hennes took Penguins forwards through drills centered around taking control of the puck at the blue line and keeping it in the offensive zone.

The Penguins did get some special teams work done. Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Guentzel, Rust and Kris Letang made up the team’s first power-play unit, with Jeff Carter, Rakell, Jason Zucker, Danton Heinen and Jeff Petry forming the second unit.

Teddy Blueger, who made his season debut Tuesday after coming off of long-term injured reserve, skated with the Penguins’ top penalty-kill unit alongside Brock McGinn and Marcus Pettersson, with Brian Dumoulin and Jan Rutta cycling in.

Josh Archibald, Ryan Poehling, P.O Joseph and Chad Ruhwedel formed the team’s second squad of penalty killers.

No Fleury for Thursday 

Up next for the Penguins is a three-game road trip, which begins Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild. Until Tuesday afternoon, it seemed as if the Penguins would be facing an old friend at the Xcel Energy Center in Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

The 37-year-old former Penguin started his first full season with Minnesota after being dealt from Chicago last year with a 6-4 record and 2.80 GAA.

But, following Minnesota’s practice Tuesday, it was revealed Fleury was dealing with an undisclosed upper-body injury that would rule him out for the game.

Fleury helped the Penguins to three Stanley Cups (2009, 2016 and 2017) from 2003-2017.

Since his Penguins days, and even as he’s gotten older, Fleury’s career has had no shortage of accolades and accomplishments.

After being selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, Fleury led the team to the Stanley Cup Finals. For the 2020-21 season, his last in Las Vegas, he was awarded the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender after a 26-10 campaign in which he posted a 1.98 GAA.

After being traded by Vegas to the Blackhawks in the 2021-22 preseason, Fleury was dealt to Minnesota this past March.

In his place Thursday , the Penguins likely will face Filip Gustavsson, another former member of their organization. Gustavsson was selected 55th overall by Pittsburgh in the 2016 NHL draft.