CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Patric Hornqvist left midway through the Penguins' practice after a fall, making him the latest in a long line of Penguins players to be lost to injury.
Mike Sullivan said after practice that Hornqvist was being evaluated for a lower-body injury.
Bryan Rust was absent from practice. Rust was injured after falling into the boards at the morning skate in Columbus, and was in a boot and using crutches by that night. Sullivan said on Monday that Rust is day-to-day.
After Brian Dumoulin had surgery to repair a lacerated tendon in his ankle on Sunday morning, that's three major blows in three days, if Rust or Hornqvist do miss any time.
"As we always say with our players, all we can do is control the controllables," Sullivan said of the injury situation. "Some of the stuff is out of our control. Guys get hurt, it's part of the game. Every team goes through it, we're no different. We just have to make sure we keep our mindset in the right place. That starts with the head coach."
With Hornqvist and Rust out joining Sidney Crosby and Nick Bjugstad, the Penguins' lines looked like this:
Jake Guentzel -- Evgeni Malkin -- Mark Recchi
Alex Galchenyuk -- Jared McCann -- Dominik Simon
Dominik Kahun -- Teddy Blueger -- Brandon Tanev
Zach Aston-Reese -- Sam Lafferty -- Joseph Blandisi
Yes, that's Mark Recchi filling in on the top line. If the injury situation keeps going the way it's going, it might be good to keep Recchi fresh.
With Dumoulin and Justin Schultz out, the defense pairs rotated.
The top power play unit included Evgeni Malkin, Alex Galchenyuk, Jake Guentzel, Kris Letang, and Zach Aston-Reese in Hornqvist's place. The second unit was Dominik Simon, Dominik Kahun, Marcus Pettersson, Juuso Riikola, Jared McCann.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• After practice, the Penguins put Joseph Blandisi on waivers and signed Stefan Noesen to an NHL contract. I spoke to Noesen one-on-one after he signed, you can find that here.
If Blandisi clears, he doesn't have to be assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton right away. Clearing would just reset the games-played/days on the roster counters. If Rust and Hornqvist are both out Wednesday night against the Blues, I'd expect Blandisi and Noesen to both play. If only one of Rust and Hornqvist are out, I'd expect Noesen to play and Blandisi to go back down.
• Schultz skated with skills coach Ty Hennes on his own this morning, and has been skating on his own "for a number of days," Sullivan said. Schultz is "close" to rejoining the team for practice.
