Penguins remain on task despite so many diversions

In any other timeline, Tuesday would have been unusual for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But practicing at Madison Square Garden in the middle of bustling New York then flying home to Pittsburgh might have been relatively normal compared to their past seven days.

To review, the past week for the Penguins included:

• General manager Jim Rutherford abruptly re-signing for reasons that remain unclear, at least publicly

• Newly signed defenseman Yannick Weber staging his own “Cannonball Run” by driving from Central Tennessee to Midtown Manhattan in order to join his new team

• Another injury on defense with All-Star Kris Letang being hobbled

• Having two of their upcoming home games postponed when the opponent, the New Jersey Devils, had 10 players land on the NHL’s list of covid-19 protocol-related absences

• Getting stuck in New York for one day after a Nor’Easter blasted the East Coast

Coach Mike Sullivan often implores his players to “control the controllables,” but that’s a lot of uncontrollables disrupting what they can control in a short period of time.

Regardless, his message remains the same.

“We’re focused on playing the game,” Sullivan said via video conference. “That’s what we talk to the players about. We’re going to control what we can, and that’s focusing on the hockey and the day-to-day process in trying to improve and get better. When the game comes, we’ve got to put our best game on the ice. We’ll learn from each experience, we’ll move by it and we’ll move to the next task at hand.”

The team’s captain echoed that tenant.

“You go through different things,” forward Sidney Crosby said. “Not specifically these things all kind of bunched together, but different experiences. You’ve just to focus on games and preparation. Block out everything else. We’ve done a pretty good job of that. We’ve played some pretty good hockey. It just comes down to executing and a few mistakes. It’s a pretty small margin of error in this league. For the most part, we’ve done a pretty good job of handling that.”

With games Tuesday and Thursday against the Devils postponed indefinitely, the Penguins will have four days between Monday’s 3-1 road loss to the New York Rangers and Saturday’s road game against the New York Islanders.

They’ve pledged to take full advantage of the respite.

“Coming into this season, we knew this was going to be a possibility, that we’d have to deal with this at some point, whether it was our team or a different team,” goaltender Casey DeSmith said. “So just take the next couple of days to rest up, get some really good practices in, improve the special teams, stuff like that. Just use the time for something positive.”

Considering how many injuries the Penguins are dealing with, particularly on the blue line, the chance to take a breather is welcomed, as well.

“We’re going to try to accomplish two things We’re going to try to get better in the areas where we need to improve and we’re going to try to give the players an opportunity to recover so, from an energy standpoint, we’re ready to play when the puck drops for the next game,” Sullivan said. “We’re looking at this as an opportunity for us to try to improve our overall team game in all different areas.”

Added forward Jason Zucker: “We obviously never want to miss games, but we had to expect it. We’re putting our trust in the league and the (NHL’s medical staffers) making sure that they’re going to make the right decisions. I feel that they are. They’re doing a great job so far. We have to respect their decision and just be ready when the puck drops, whenever they tell us we’re going to play next.”

The Penguins are not oblivious to what has happened to them over the past week.

But they don’t seem interested in devoting much focus on it.

“We recognize we’re in a unique circumstance,” Sullivan said. “Our expectation going into this (season) was there was going to be distractions and uncontrollable that are going to come our way, just with the respect to the pandemic alone. From a sheer mindset standpoint, it’s not anything that our guys and coaching staff isn’t prepared for. When it hits, the conversation usually revolves around this is what we were talking about before the season. We’ve got to expect inconvenience.

“Uncontrollable circumstances are going to come our way, and we’ve got to react accordingly.”

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