CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins probably aren't going to be playing on the greatest ice when they move into the NHL's bubble in Toronto.
Toronto's Scotiabank Arena could host up to three games per day during the qualifying round, with games scheduled for noon, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. The Penguins' first three games of the qualifying round are scheduled for the 8 p.m. time slot. It remains to be seen how the ice will hold up for that third time slot.
I asked Sullivan after Friday's practice about the anticipated ice situation in Toronto, and it's something the coaching staff is taking into consideration during training camp.
"I had this discussion with the players on the ice today," Sullivan said. "We’re not sure what the quality of the ice is going to be like when we get there, depending on which game we get and how the ice holds up throughout the course of multiple games being played on it. And so we may have to simplify our game and we might have to get accustomed to playing in a situation where the ice breaks down."
Is there anything that can be done to prepare for that, though?
There are a number of things that can be done, and the preparations started before the start of formal training camp. Skills coach Ty Hennes, who led the Penguins' voluntary informal skates during Phase 2, told me that part of his focus was preparing for some rough hockey, whether it be from rust or bad ice.
“We’re doing a lot of things with hand-eye coordination and using our feet to pick up pucks,” Hennes explained. “Hockey may not be the most elegant and pretty when it returns to play. A lot of pucks may be in the air, bouncing, rolling in their feet. We’re trying to get the players’ skill sets ready to handle whatever the game throws at them, that’s our focus.”
Another part of that preparation was what happened at the end of Friday's practice.
Friday's training camp session was on the longer side, about an hour and 20 minutes of formal practice. The team had their first real, extended, five-on-five scrimmage work on Friday. And it was held at the end of the practice, when the ice was rough. That was intentional.
"We had a number of shifts in our short intra-squad today on ice after having skated on it for an hour where it wasn’t the cleanest sheet out there," Sullivan said. "As I said to our players, I think we have a team that’s built to thrive on any type of quality of ice. We have the ability to play it fast and a speed game if the ice is really good and we can skate on top of it, but we also have the ability to play in the trenches and play a grind game if the ice is in tough shape. So, we’ll practice that throughout the course of the training camp. That was part of the logic that we decided to do the intra-squad today and putting it at the end of the practice, when the ice quality isn’t great, to get guys used to having to play on that type of surface.”
Smart thinking.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• The lines and pairings were the same as the first three days:
Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Conor Sheary
Jason Zucker — Evgeni Malkin — Bryan Rust
Patrick Marleau — Jared McCann — Sam Lafferty/Evan Rodrigues
Zach Aston-Reese — Teddy Blueger — Brandon Tanev
Brian Dumoulin — Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson — John Marino
Jack Johnson — Justin Schultz
Kevin Czuczman — Chad Ruhwedel
• It doesn't sound like Sullivan has any plans on switching those lines up any time soon.
"We like the lines that we’ve had together here to this point," he told me. "It gets a little bit easier when we get into some game situations to evaluate and see what kind of chemistry evolves and whether we like the balance that we have or we like the groups that we have that are together. But to this point, we like what we’ve seen and as the camp evolves and we start to get more into intra-squad games and we play the exhibition game when we get up to Toronto. I think it will give us a clearer idea of the direction that we want to go."
• The nine players who missed the first two days of practice — Patric Hornqvist, Anthony Angello, Adam Johnson, Samuel Poulin, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Philip Varone, Sam Miletic, Juuso Riikola and Alex D’Orio — were again missing today.
• Emil Larmi and Casey DeSmith skated on their own on the other rink.
• The first power play remained Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin, and Jared McCann.
• The second power play unit included Justin Schultz, Patrick Marleau, Bryan Rust, and Jason Zucker, with Conor Sheary and John Marino rotating in the last spot.
Here's one of the runs from the second unit, with a big save from Tristan Jarry on Sheary at the end:
• Wednesday saw Letang and Schultz switch power play units halfway through the special teams work, but both stuck with the same units on Friday.
• It looks like Zucker will stick on that second line with Malkin and Rust. Zucker didn't play with those two during the regular season, so I asked Rust about how they're able to develop chemistry in just a short camp. At least in the case of Rust and Zucker, they had a head start on building that chemistry.
“He’s proven time and time again that he’s a great offensive player and he can score goals," Rust said. "He brings that dimension to our line. He’s a great skater. I’m pretty familiar with him. We played together back in the U.S. Development program. I’m kind of familiar with him there. Just trying to get on the ice and trying get as many reps as possible to build that chemistry.”
• It seemed like there was more contact in drills today compared to Wednesday. That includes Guentzel, too. He seems to have a smile on his face most of the time he's on the ice, so he doesn't seem to mind it.
• Players are trying to work their way back up to that game-like level of physicality.
"We've had some battling drills thus far throughout camp," Tanev said. "I think the coaching staff has done a great job of incorporating that back into practice. But I think at the same time, you want to battle and play hard against your teammates, but in the same way do that clean. You don't want to be coming in and running guys and being a nuisance out there. You want to play the game the right way and play hard and put yourself in a position to battle. You miss that grind of the game. I think that we all embrace that part of hockey."
• No penalties were called in the scrimmage. One team tried to clear the puck early and shot it into the bleachers, the other team looked like they wanted a delay-of-game call out of it. The lone official, Hennes, waived it off.
• Jarry was lights-out in the scrimmage. He robbed Letang early on with a stick save, and had a couple of other big saves. He had his moments during the other drills, too. He stopped Marleau on the doorstep on one rush, and Marleau kept taking whacks at the rebounds. Jarry kept the puck out and Marleau skated off, shrugging and shaking his head while laughing.
• Sam Lafferty told me during the season that he was planning on getting his teeth permanently fixed over the summer. He had all of his teeth in on his WebEx call, so I asked about it. It was just a flipper, his temporary teeth that he can take in and out. The permanent teeth are getting delayed until after the playoffs, one of the many effects of the coronavirus shutdown.
• The exhibition game on July 28 against the Flyers should be interesting. It's essentially like a preseason game, but it's also the only real game teams have to prepare for the qualifying round. And in the Penguins' case, they're facing off against their biggest rival. I asked Sullivan what he expects of the level of intensity in that game.
“I do think there’s going to be a different level of intensity to that exhibition game in Toronto," he said. "It’s a lot different than when we have exhibition games in September, when we’re at the beginning of the season, at the beginning of an 82-game schedule. These guys know that this is an opportunity to get our team game as fine-tuned as it can possibly be for when the puck drops a couple of days later when it counts for real and the stakes are extremely high. Our guys are well aware of that. I’m sure every team going up there is in the same circumstance, so i would anticipate those exhibition games having a higher level of intensity.”
• This was the first day of training camp where everyone in the media on the WebEx interviews remembered to unmute themselves when it was their turn to ask a question. A round of applause for all involved.
• Saturday was originally scheduled to be a 10:30 a.m. morning skate followed by a 7 p.m. scrimmage. The new plan is for no morning skate, and the scrimmage to be held at 10:45 a.m., to be streamed on the Penguins' website, app, Youtube, and Facebook. It sounded like there may have been an issue regarding testing and players coming to the arena twice in one day, which would explain the change in schedule.
• Stay safe:
Rutherford, all set with hand sanitizer and clorox wipes. #Pens #DKPS pic.twitter.com/EkaTkMy2gx
— Taylor Haase (@TaylorHaasePGH) July 17, 2020
