CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins again took to the ice without Derick Brassard, bugged for the past few days with a lower-body injury, this time for their Monday practice at the Lemieux Sports Complex. It isn't clear when he might be back, as Mike Sullivan allowed after the session that Brassard was kept off the ice entirely.
Kris Letang left this 50-minute practice about 10 minutes early, and he'll be considered a game-time decision Tuesday before facing the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena, Sullivan said. Sullivan called Letang's exit "precautionary," acknowledging that it was the effect of a lower-body injury that forced Letang out of the game briefly Saturday night in Vancouver.
There were no other injury updates.
Brassard was hurt last Thursday night, late in the 9-1 victory against Calgary, and didn't play Saturday in Vancouver. He'd also been given what Sullivan called a "maintenance day" just before the game in Calgary.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• The lines and pairings used in practice strongly suggested that Dominik Simon will bump up to the top line to replace Brassard, as he did -- quite well -- in Vancouver:
Guentzel-Crosby-Simon
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Sheahan-Cullen-Hornqvist
Rust-Grant-Sprong
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Oleksiak
Johnson-Ruhwedel
(Riikola)
If those forward lines hold -- and Sullivan, as ever, reminded that they're "in pencil and not pen" -- Simon would get another chance to skate alongside Sidney Crosby, a combination that both the coach and the captain himself have liked.
Simon, not surprisingly, wouldn't mind, either.
"I love playing with Sid. Who wouldn't?" he said. "When I'm out there, I just try to help him do the things he does best. That's what I did the other night."
Simon set up Crosby -- thanks also to Jake Guentzel and Olli Maatta -- on this gorgeous zone entry in Vancouver:
• When Letang left practice, Juuso Riikola finished drills on the top defense pairing alongside Brian Dumoulin.
• Crosby, on taking the ice in Pittsburgh for the first time since the Squirrel Hill shooting: "I think you just keep that in the back of your mind. We'll try to play for the city, as we always do, but especially in times like this. It's a terrible thing that happened. We're thinking about everyone involved. ... We just got home late last night, but everyone was following it from Vancouver. It was everywhere. You see things like that ... unfortunately a lot. But to have it happen where you live is ... something that's hard to believe. It's a terrible feeling. We'll try to do whatever we can to help out."
• Sullivan spoke on the subject, too:
• The Penguins and Islanders will both skate Tuesday, the home team at 10:30 a.m. and the visitors an hour later. The goaltending matchup almost certainly will be Matt Murray vs. Thomas Greiss. The Islanders are fresh off a 2-1 victory over the Hurricanes, Sunday in Raleigh, N.C., and they're 5-4-1 overall.
• I'll have much more hockey tonight, culled from this practice, in the Tuesday Grind column that goes up at midnight.
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