The Penguins lost forward Evan Rodrigues to injury on Sunday night in their 3-2 win over the Rangers at PPG Paints Arena.
Rodrigues collided with New York forward Filip Chytil in the second period, injuring both players. Chytil's left knee directly hit the side of Rodrigues' right knee, and Rodrigues' knee appeared to twist in the wrong direction:
Rodrigues was slow to get up and limped down the tunnel. He didn't return to the game. Mike Sullivan said after the game that Rodrigues was still being evaluated for a lower-body injury. The Penguins practice on Monday, so we'll likely get another update on Rodrigues' status then.
Chytil was even slower to get up, but didn't head straight for the locker room. He sat on the Rangers' bench and looked to get his arm worked on by a trainer for a few minutes, then returned to the ice. He remained in the locker room when the Rangers came out onto the ice for the third period, however.
With Rodrigues absent, Bryan Rust stepped into his place on the first line alongside Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel, a move that proved to be successful with Rust and Guentzel scoring the game-tying and game-winning goals, respectively. Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen stepped up to be Evgeni Malkin's wingers, and the trio performed well in the brief time they spent together.
If Rodrigues can't play next game, the two forwards on the taxi squad who would be looking to replace him are wingers Sam Lafferty and Drew O'Connor. Since the top two lines worked well in the second half of Sunday's game, the line combinations for next game could look something like this if Rodrigues isn't able to play:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Malkin-Kapanen
McCann-Jankowski-Tanev
O'Connor/Lafferty-Blueger-Sceviour
Sullivan spoke highly of O'Connor after a practice last week.
"We think Drew had a real strong camp, and we think he's performed extremely well on the taxi squad up to this point," Sullivan said. "I know our hockey ops department did their homework on Drew. We knew he was a good player coming in. You can see his physical stature. He's a big kid. He's strong on the puck. He's a good skater. He has good poise. So he has a lot of the attributes that can potentially really translate into being a good pro."
After Kapanen was added to the active roster last week and Lafferty was relegated to the taxi squad, Sullivan spoke about what Lafferty needs to do to stick at the NHL level and be successful.
“He’s a good player,” Sullivan said. “He can really skate, he brings good size, he brings a physical dimension to his game. I had a conversation with Sam about this. When I look at his game, I think for Sam to be a consistent NHL player in the lineup every night, I think he just has to bring more consistency to his game. When Sam’s at his best, he brings an element of reckless abandon to his approach. He can really skate, he puts pressure on defensemen, he has good size and strength. He can bring a physical dimension to our team. And when he’s reliably defensively and he’s trustworthy, he’s a real valuable player for us.”
