Penguins notebook: Marcus Pettersson returns to lineup

Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson returned to the lineup for Tuesday’s home game against the Washington Capitals at PPG Paints Arena.

He had been sidelined for nine consecutive games because of an undisclosed injury.

The team activated Pettersson from injured reserve Tuesday afternoon.

During his absence, the Penguins dealt with a number of injuries that have sidelined other defensemen such as Brian Dumoulin, Kris Letang and Mike Matheson. While Pettersson was gone, the team had a 5-4-1 record.

“We’ve had a little tough stretch,” Pettersson said via video conference. “Up and down. We have a lot of injuries throughout our lineup. The guys that have come in have done a good job. We’re in a dogfight in our division. There’s a lot of good teams as you can see in the standings. It’s been fun to watch. We try to go out there and battle each day. … We’ve got to keep battling because it’s going to be a dog fight.”

Pettersson opened Tuesday’s contest on the team’s third pairing with Cody Ceci.

With Pettersson back in the lineup, defensemen Chad Ruhwedel, Yannick Weber and rookie forward Drew O’Connor were scratched.

DeSmith back, too

Goaltender Casey DeSmith served as the backup to starter Tristan Jarry. He was scratched for Sunday’s 6-3 home win against the Capitals because of an illness that was not related to covid-19.

With DeSmith available, the team assigned reserve goaltender Maxime Lagace to its taxi squad.

Little Geno

During Sunday’s game, franchise center Evgeni Malkin logged a season-low 14 minutes, 6 seconds of ice time on 20 shifts.

Coach Mike Sullivan said Malkin’s meager usage rooted in the Penguins only having limited power-play opportunities in that contest while as well as their defense of a one-goal lead for most of the third period.

“It was more circumstance than anything,” Sullivan said. “We had two (power-play opportunities) in the game, but one of them we score off the faceoff so there wasn’t a lot of power-play time. And (Malkin) commands a lot of ice through the power play. We tried to utilize the bench as much as we could, trying to play four lines and getting four lines involved. And also, we were trying to defend a lead down the stretch. I thought Teddy Blueger’s line was doing a really good job in the role that we cast them in. (Sidney Crosby’s) line was obviously dominant throughout the course of the game. But I think it was more circumstantial.”

Big Jankwoski

Fourth-line center Mark Jankowski got in some work on the team’s second-power play unit Monday in Cranberry. His ability to take a draw as well as his dimensions (6-foot-4, 212 pounds) led to the coaches giving him a look in a net-front role with that group.

“We’re trying to cast guys in certain roles and put them in certain positions where they can be successful,” Sullivan said. “That’s one area where we think (Jankowski) can help us is on that second power-play unit with the people that we have in the lineup right now. We don’t necessarily have a center iceman that can take the faceoff. And (Jankowski) is a big strong guy that we think could be pretty good at the net front. That was some of the reasoning behind it.

“It should give (Jankowski) an opportunity to get more minutes in the game so that we can spread the minutes the way we need to given the demands of the schedule here moving forward. We’re hoping we can cast guys in roles where they can be successful.”