The Penguins practiced for about an hour on Wednesday morning at Southpointe. ForwardĀ James NealĀ (upper-body) and the players on injured reserve (defensemanĀ Kris Letang, lower-body; forward Matt DāAgostini, lower-body; and goalieĀ Tomas Vokoun, blood clot) were all missing from the team skate. Coach Dan Bylsma did have some updates following practiceā¦
- Neal skated briefly today, D’Agostini skated for a longer duration and Letang skated for āapproximately 50 minutes today at a pretty good clip, which is a progression for him from (Tuesday),ā Bylsma said.
- Letang will travel with the team on their road trip to Florida, but Bylsma said that he needs to progress back to practice before they think about putting him in a game at this point in time. āHe skated for a good duration today. But I don’t see him just stepping back into a game situation without team practice,ā Bylsma said.
- Bylsma added that the team is still waiting to see whether DāAgostini will travel with the team this weekend, and Neal will not go. āHe’s week-to-week still at this point. He’s gotten a little bit better, but not to the point where we’re coming off week-to-week,ā Bylsma said of Neal.
- Backup goalieĀ Jeff ZatkoffĀ will start one of Pittsburgh’s games this weekend, their first set of back-to-backs this season. They play the Florida Panthers at 7:30 p.m. Friday and the Tampa Bay Lightning at 7 p.m. on Saturday. āThis would be a perfect spot for Jeff to play one of the games. I haven’t talked to the goaltenders yet about the rotation, so that will happen in one of these two games, but not ready to tell you which one,ā Bylsma said.