Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin was labeled as a “game-time decision” for Sunday’s home contest against the Detroit Red Wings at PPG Paints Arena.
The superstar center was absent from practice in Cranberry on Saturday after missing Friday’s 5-1 road loss to the New York Rangers because of an undisclosed illness.
“(Malkin) still isn’t feeling well,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “So he didn’t come in today. We’ll monitor how he feels throughout the course of the day. I would anticipate him being a game-time decision tomorrow based on how he feels.”
The team has not issued any specifics on the illness other than to state that it is not related to covid-19.
While the pandemic has altered seemingly every walk of life over the past two years, the Penguins don’t necessarily treat “traditional” illnesses any differently. But there is an altered perspective on monitoring such ailments.
“There’s a heightened awareness,” Sullivan said. “Obviously, our medical staff is very attuned to different symptoms and things of that nature. There’s more sensitivity around it because of the pandemic. I don’t know if we do anything differently other than if they suspect that it might be (covid-19), they would test for it.”
With Malkin’s status uncertain, the Penguins recalled rookie forward Kasper Bjorkqvist from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League under emergency conditions.
Backup goaltender Casey DeSmith participated in practice Saturday. He left Friday’s game during the second period after a collision with Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin caused his head to hit the right post of the goal. Sullivan indicated DeSmith was healthy.
Learning from loss
The Penguins’ practice Saturday started at approximately 12:10 p.m., roughly 10 minutes later than originally scheduled.
A skeptic might suggest such a delay was fitting given how poorly they started Friday’s carbuncle of a defeat.
In all reality, the Penguins cleared the air on what went wrong in New York before taking the ice.
“I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that we didn’t have our best,” Sullivan said. “Our players are well aware of that. This is a proud group. It’s important that we learn through the experiences. That was a hard one. There needs to be some takeaways. We had a discussion about it this morning. It’s an opportunity for us to get better through some of those hard experiences.
“At this time of year, you’ve got to have a short memory. You’ve got to be ready and willing to put things behind you. You’ve got to look at that game right in front of you, and you’ve got to do your best to put yourself in the right headspace to set yourself up for success. Our players, we’ve got a pretty mature group. They understand what the lessons might be from last night. They understand that we need to be able to put it behind us and move on and try to become a better team moving forward.”
Few, if any, of the Penguins’ previous losses this season could match or surpass the acrid backwash Friday’s setback offered.
“It’s definitely still on our minds,” Penguins forward Jeff Carter said. “That was probably our worst performance of the year. It’s something that we’ve talked about and we’ve addressed. We’ve still got a lot of games left here so we can’t dwell on it too long. A performance like that and a game like that, you can’t just really just move by. You’ve got to learn from it, address a few things and we’ll get back to work (Sunday).”
