On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Penguins practiced in their Cranberry facility. As has been customary under coach Mike Sullivan, it was staged at a furious pace. No wasted motion or minutes. Seemingly every action on the ice had a purpose.

Earlier that morning, the newly formed taxi squad did the same thing, just separately.

Forwards Anthony Angello, Frederick Gaudreau, Drew O’Connor, goaltenders Alex D’Orio, Maxime Lagace and defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph practiced with assistant coaches while members of the NHL roster prepared to for their own practice session.

The decision to segregate the groups was made to maximize time on ice for the regulars on the NHL roster while also being conscious of preventing a potential coronavirus outbreak spreading between the team’s incumbent players and their reserves.

Such is life for NHL teams during times of pestilence.

“There’s going to be a little bit of both,” Sullivan said during a video conference. “We’re certainly going to include them in the learning process and how our team evolves throughout the course of this year from a strategy standpoint to making sure that they stay up to speed with the conversation that’s going on around our team. … Having said that, we’re going to keep them separated from the group (to limit exposure). We’re going to try to do our best to mitigate the risk and minimize that type of circumstance if that presents itself.”

Goalies, too

Another group that will experience some form of segregation is goaltenders.

Given the specialization of the position and the limited number of players available to play in net, the Penguins have limited contact between starter Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith as well as D’Orio and Lagace.

In the NFL, the Denver Broncos ran into troubles when all of their quarterbacks were sidelined because of coronavirus concerns and they were forced to use a practice squad wide receiver at quarterback for one game.

Trying to practically limit the contact between goaltenders is a work in progress.

“It’s not an easy circumstance because the goaltenders, especially on the ice, there’s some things that they do together with the goalie coach (Mike Buckley),” Sullivan said. “But we’re certainly aware of it. Logistically, these guys are separated.

“When we’re off the ice, we try to do that with our whole team. Even our video meetings, we’ve got our guys spread apart. We’re taking every precaution with our whole group here to try to mitigate the risk. But we’ll continue to try to talk about that stuff as we go. We’ve talked everything from buses to planes to hotels to the locker room to the video room and all of those circumstances on how we can do our very best as a staff. That’s an inclusive effort from our medical trainers to our strength and conditioning guys to our coaching staff. We’re trying to be as strict and disciplined, as vigilant as we can to try to mitigate that risk.”

ZAR gets work

Forward Zach Aston-Reese skated with the practice squad for the second consecutive day Tuesday. He remains sidelined while recuperating from offseason surgery on his right shoulder in mid-August. The team initially offered a timeline of six months for a recovery.

“We’re really encouraged with the progress that he’s made to this point,” Sullivan said. “The fact that he’s on the ice suggests that he’s that much closer to being ready, to participate in a full-time capacity. When that time comes, we’ll let you know. But we’re certainly encouraged by his progress.”

Aston-Reese officially opened the season on injured reserve.

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