Mike Sullivan doesn't know if the 2019-20 NHL season is going to resume.
And if it does, he certainly doesn't know when that's going to happen.
Never mind having any sense of what sort of format the league might put in place, like whether any regular-season games would be played or whether the standard procedure for the Stanley Cup playoffs would be followed.
But there is one thing about which Sullivan seems quite confident: If the NHL returns this spring or summer, everyone on the Penguins' major-league roster should be available to play.
"I think there's a strong possibility," he told DK Pittsburgh Sports by phone Tuesday. "Ultimately, I can't give you a definite answer, because I don't have one, but I think I'm probably stating the obvious when I say that the longer this goes, it gives players who have been rehabbing and recovering from some of the longer-term injuries more of an opportunity to get themselves ready to play. I think there's a strong possibility we would have a healthy lineup."
That's significant, because Sullivan had his lineup of choice intact for just part of one of his team's first 69 games. That was during a 2-1 overtime loss to Edmonton Nov. 2 at PPG Paints Arena, but Patric Hornqvist left the game with an injury that forced him to sit out the following seven games.
The Penguins had lost 302 man-games to injury and illness when the season was suspended, and no fewer than five forwards -- Jake Guentzel, Zach Aston-Reese, Dominik Simon, Nick Bjugstad and Anthony Angello -- were crammed onto their injured list when the stoppage began.
The most significant of those was Guentzel, who underwent shoulder surgery Dec. 31 and was projected to be out until at least late April. In recent weeks, the prevailing sentiment inside the organization has been that Guentzel will be ready to rejoin the lineup this spring, if the opportunity presents itself.
Per NHL guidelines, injured players are allowed to use team facilities -- they are off-limits to all others -- in conjunction with their rehabilitation regimens, but Sullivan said no Penguins are doing so now.
"Right now, we don't have anybody using our facilities," he said. "Everybody's in a self-quarantine mode. They're still going through certain rehab activities every day -- our (medical) guys are in touch with them on a daily basis. There was a time when, early on (in the shutdown), that some of those guys were rehabbing with our rehab guys, but I think the pandemic has gone to another level."
If hockey returns this spring or summer, NHL teams would need several weeks, at least, of preparation before playing games that count. Sullivan said he and his staff -- who meet regularly in video conferences -- have discussed the objectives they would have for a training camp, but won't settle on the specifics of how to attain those goals until they know some pertinent details.
"We've talked about what we would try to accomplish, given the circumstances," he said. "We haven't gotten to the point where we've actually built out a specific, day-to-day game plan. But we have talked about what that would look like, and what we'd need to accomplish as a coaching staff in order to make sure our team is prepared in the most optimal way.
"There are so many factors that we don't know now, like how long we're going to be off, how long is the training camp actually going to be; how many days, things of that nature. So it's hard to be specific, but we have talked about just kind of big-picture objectives on what we'll try to accomplish when the resumption of play does occur."
Some of the scenarios that have been discussed are based on the league stepping directly into the Stanley Cup playoffs after those training camps.
If the league would determine that the standings as of March 12 are final and that the usual ways of determining playoff matchups will be followed, the Penguins would face Philadelphia in the opening round. There's no assurance that will be the case, of course, but Sullivan and his assistants have done some cursory work to get ready for teams they might face during the postseason.
"We've discussed possible (playoff) scenarios, I guess, that potentially could arise, and how we could best be prepared for that," he said. "Those are discussions that are ongoing. We've started to game plan, from a strategy standpoint, on how we're going to approach it if the resumption of play takes place."
