In regards to the structure of the day’s schedule, everything about Thursday is being designed to mimic a normal game day for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The team’s latest intrasquad scrimmage has a 7 p.m. faceoff similar to the regular season in a regular season. Nine days later, the Penguins begin a postseason to cap the end of a season that has been anything but regular. And considering they haven’t played a live game in more than four months, coach Mike Sullivan is doing everything he can to create circumstances most like one.
“It’s going to be as close to a game day as we can possibly come,” Sullivan said after Wednesday’s practice during a video conference call with media. “We are going to keep the same times that we always have, morning skates, they will get pregame meals. All so the players will have an opportunity to go through a team gameday.”
The intrasquad scrimmage was in the Penguins' facility in Cranberry. There were reminders of brighter times — such as their last Stanley Cup run in 2017.https://t.co/cUxoM7y019
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) July 18, 2020
Sullivan noted that Saturday’s final intrasquad scrimmage has a noon faceoff, done because among time windows for games during the NHL’s postseason include noon.
Sullivan has previously noted a desire to play as many intrasquad scrimmages as possible because of the lack of competitive games since the March 12 NHL shutdown and because there is only one exhibition game before the playoffs begin.
“The one aspect about (players’) conditioning that they really couldn’t address is just the battle stuff and the tight-area space and the leaning on people and the getting leaned on and things of that nature,” Sullivan said. “That’s a different type of conditioning and so we are trying to give them the opportunity throughout the course of the camp since we’ve been together to try to establish that level of conditioning.”
