CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins are swapping out one depth forward for another.
Drew O'Connor has been recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the AHL and Drake Caggiula has been re-assigned right back to where O'Connor is coming from as a corresponding roster move, it was announced on Monday morning by Ron Hextall.
O'Connor -- in my eyes -- had a solid training camp with the Penguins, but ultimately had to start the season in the AHL, most likely due to the Penguins' salary cap restraints. He has scored two goals and recorded four assists in eight games so far this season. His 30 shots on goal are the most of any Wilkes-Barre/Scranton skater.
Last season, the 6-foot-3 forward got off to a hot start after making the NHL club, but cooled off as time went on. He then suffered a collapsed lung in the middle of the season and did not return to the NHL until the Penguins' first-round postseason series against the Rangers, in which he dressed for two games.
During practice at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex here in Cranberry on Monday, O'Connor was in attendance and skated on the third line, centering Danton Heinen and Kasperi Kapanen in place of Jeff Carter, who left Saturday's game in Seattle with a lower-body injury and did not return. Mike Sullivan said Carter is still being evaluated and that he is day-to-day.
"Well, his last three games he’s been one of their (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) best players, if not their best. He’s played very well," Sullivan said of the decision to recall O'Connor. "And obviously with Carts being out right now, we needed another center-iceman, and specifically we need a center-iceman that can kill penalties. … You look at the circumstance we had the other night when Carts went out, we had Ryan Poehling taking faceoffs on the penalty kill, and after that I’m looking at players like Sid, and sometimes I’m trying to take those guys out of those situations."
Perhaps O'Connor can be of some help to the Penguins' No. 28 ranked penalty-kill that sits at a 71% success rate on the season.
O'Connor spoke with the media following practice and said that he found out he was getting called up late Sunday night, then drove into town early Monday morning to make it on time for practice.
He also admitted that he felt as if he wasn't quite at his best right out of the gates, but is happy with his progress and where his game is at right now.
"Good," O'Connor told me after I asked him to assess his early-season performance. "I think I wasn’t my best early on. I think I could’ve been a bit better in camp and those first few games in Wilkes, but I think I’ve kind of gotten back to what I do best the last few games and playing well. So yeah, I’m feeling good."
I then pushed O'Connor to divulge what specific areas of his game he felt he wasn't on top of to start the season. Unsurprisingly, the areas he shared are vital to Sullivan's system.
"I think I wasn’t hunting pucks as much as I can, getting on the forecheck, making the plays I know I can make," he said. "So I think for me, it was just kind of dial-in a little bit more, working even harder, and I think once I did that, it started going my way a little bit more."
Caggiula, on the other hand, started this season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton but was recalled when Teddy Blueger was placed on long-term injured reserve on Oct. 23. Caggiula made his way into three games, putting two shots on goal and failing to register a point. He struggled to make much of an impact playing on the fourth line, as the Penguins controlled an awful 27.9% of the expected goals during his 22 minutes of 5-on-5 ice-time. They did not score a goal during that time.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• Kris Letang was absent from practice on Monday. No need to fear, as Sullivan said they kept him at home because he is not feeling well. It remains to be seen whether or not Letang will be available for Tuesday night's matchup against the Bruins at PPG Paints Arena.
• Blueger remains on long-term injured reserve and won't be eligible to be activated until Nov. 5 against the Kraken at the earliest. That said, he skated in a regular yellow jersey during practice, an indicator that he wasn't limited in regard to taking body contact. Sullivan confirmed afterward that he participated in a full capacity.
Instead of skating on a forward line, Blueger formed a pairing on defense with P.O Joseph. He also rotated in at forward with the first penalty-kill unit.
The 28-year-old center has been sidelined with an upper-body injury since training camp.
• Sullivan was asked about the energy and attention to detail from the players during Monday's practice, and he seemed pleased.
"I thought it was good. I thought the energy was good, I thought we had a good film session this morning," he said. "It’s our job as a coaching staff to bring them some answers and try to help them with some of the challenges that we’re up against in order to get the results that we’re looking for. I thought we had a productive day. We showed them areas where we think we need to improve and get better. We tried to show them examples — visuals — of when we were at our best, and what that looks like and some of the details associated with it. And then we went out and had a spirited practice."
• Here are the lines and defense pairings utilized during practice:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Danton Heinen - Drew O'Connor - Kasperi Kapanen
Brock McGinn - Ryan Poehling - Josh Archibald
Sam Poulin rotated in with the second line on several occasions.
Jan Rutta/Brian Dumoulin - Jeff Petry
Marcus Pettersson - Chad Ruhwedel
P.O Joseph - Teddy Blueger
• It's at least mildly noteworthy that Rutta and Dumoulin split reps on the left side of the first pairing. I doubt Dumoulin is moved from that spot on Tuesday if Letang doesn't play, but if he does, it wouldn't surprise me to see Rutta get a look there.
Dumoulin's performance this season has ranged from OK, to downright terrible depending on the game. The Penguins can't afford for that to continue on from their No. 1 left-defenseman.
• And the special teams personnel utilized during practice ...
PP1: Crosby, Guentzel, Rust, Malkin, Petry
PP2: Poulin, Rakell, Zucker, Heinen, Joseph
PK1: Poehling, McGinn, Dumoulin, Rutta
PK2: O'Connor, Kapanen, Pettersson, Ruhwedel
Poulin served as the net-front presence on the second power-play unit.
• The Zucker-Malkin-Rust line wasn't just the Penguins' best line before Zucker missed several games due to injury, it was one of the best lines in hockey, as I analyzed in my Drive to the Net column from Oct. 20.
On top of that, Crosby and Rakell have shown quite a bit of chemistry together since the latter was acquired from the Ducks last season. But when Zucker returned to the lineup -- alongside Guentzel -- on Saturday in Seattle, Rust was back with Crosby and Rakell was bumped down with Malkin. Obviously, those combos stuck for practice.
Malkin and Rakell have not shown all that well in their time together, so it's puzzling that such a move was made within the lineup when both of the Penguins' top two lines were the best things the team had going for them.
I tried to pull a reason out of Sullivan, but was met with an expected response.
"I'm not gonna walk you through the details of why we make the decisions that we make," he told me. "What I can tell you is, is that we have options there and we anticipated that going into the season, and that's never etched in stone. We have our reasons on why we make those decisions, whether it be in-game or things of that nature. What I will tell you is, is that those decisions are thought through thoroughly before those types of decisions are made. What I would anticipate -- moving forward -- it wouldn't surprise me if those decisions move throughout the course of the season. That was something we anticipated going in.
"The positive, what we think, is that we have options. We have options in the top-six where we can move people around Sid and Geno so that we can try to give them both what they need to do what they do best, and help us create the balance that we need in order for us to be hard to play against and give our team a better chance to win. ... There's a lot that goes into those types of decisions. I'm not gonna get into the details, but the positives, like I said, is that we've got options there to move those guys around Sid and Geno in order to get what we think is the combinations that give us the best chance to win."
