ELMONT, N.Y. -- Rickard Rakell said that for his six-month-old daughter Daisy's first Christmas, he and his wife Emmeli wanted to show her all the Swedish holiday traditions.
"Just showing her how to prepare the Christmas ham, having Santa come to the house," Rakell explained. "Small things like that."
In Sweden it's tradition to celebrate on Christmas Eve, and part of that celebration usually involves Santa coming to visit -- usually played by a relative or family friend.
"It's a classic, classic thing that when the dad goes out to buy the newspaper in the evening, you know he's going to be Santa," Marcus Pettersson told me before the holiday break.
Santa did make a stop at the Rakell house, much to the delight of their daughter:
EMMELI RAKELL / INSTAGRAM
I asked Rakell who he had play the part of Santa for his daughter, and he smiled and pointed a few seats to his left at Pettersson.
"He was really good," Rakell said of Pettersson. "He had the whole thing, he was kitted out and played the part."
Pettersson said that it was his wife Beatrice that got him the costume, and she went all out.
"I looked like a luxury Santa," Pettersson laughed. "It had gold on everything, and it came with a little belly that went over your head."
Pettersson had a big smile on his face talking about the experience, and called it "a lot of fun."
"She's so small," Pettersson said. "She lights up when she sees a present. But the more interesting part was the dogs, they have two dogs (Heinz and Stella) as well. Their reaction to it, they were barking and started to run around and stuff like that."
Pettersson said that he wanted to keep the suit on and walk around to the houses of other teammates who lived in the area, but the sub-zero temperatures kept him just playing Santa for the Rakells.
A lot of players stayed at home due to the weather. Brian Dumoulin said that he didn't have any family come into town since they're going to see them at the Winter Classic next week anyway, so he just spent the day with his wife Kayla and son Brayden.
"It was relaxing, a good time," Dumoulin said. "(Brayden) is really into Transformers, he got a few of those and a bumper car that he was driving around, but he was just excited for everything. I think he was more excited for the unwrapping than the actual presents."
The Penguins had a full morning skate on Tuesday ahead of their 7:38 p.m. game against the Islanders in Elmont, N.Y., and the mood was noticeably light. There were lots of celebrations after goals and some laughs, like when Sidney Crosby was loudly chirping Jason Zucker and then Pettersson from the opposite side of the ice between reps of drills.
The holiday break was a quick one -- just four days -- but it's a welcome rest and reset in the middle of a grind of an 82-game season.
"You just get to breathe out a little bit," Pettersson said. "Even though you get days off in between games and stuff, it's so hectic, the travel schedule and everything. So just to be able to get away from it a little bit and exhale for a couple of days, you get to be recharged and focused for when we come back now."
Dumoulin said that his family was "definitely thankful" for the break.
"It's definitely really nice," he said. "It's good to think about things other than hockey a little bit and focus on family for a couple of days."
Those couple of days have players rested and refocused for this next stretch of the season.
"I think it's nice to just get away from it a little bit and then just find that spark again," Rakell said. "I think it was a really nice break for everyone just to see their friends and families and now just come back and get excited to play hockey again."
MORE FROM THE SKATE
• Before the skate the Penguins had recalled Mark Friedman, who had been re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton at the start of the break. It was a paper move made due to Friedman's wavier status. Since he cleared waivers at the start of the season, he is exempt from waivers until he plays 10 NHL games or spends 30 days on the active roster, whatever comes first. Those figures are cumulative over the course of the season. By sending Friedman down over the break, it provided a pause to those days racking up and counting toward the 30-day threshold.
• Tristan Jarry will start in goal.
• All players who were healthy before the break were in attendance, plus Ryan Poehling, who is dealing with an upper-body injury. Poehling was a full participant in the morning skate but Mike Sullivan said he won't play Tuesday.
• Josh Archibald (lower-body) and Jeff Petry (wrist, longer term) didn't make the trip. Sullivan said that Archibald is continuing to be evaluated back in Pittsburgh.
• The Penguins used the same lines and pairings as last game, with Poehling rotating in on the fourth line and Friedman working as an extra defenseman:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Brock McGinn - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
Drew O'Connor/Ryan Poehling - Teddy Blueger - Danton Heinen
Marcus Pettersson - Kris Letang
Brian Dumoulin - Jan Rutta
P.O Joseph - Chad Ruhwedel
Mark Friedman
• The power play groups remained the same. The top unit was Kris Letang, Crosby, Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin and Rakell. The second unit was P.O Joseph, Jason Zucker, Jeff Carter, Kasperi Kapanen and Bryan Rust.
• Santa didn’t bring Crosby a razor for Christmas. His mustache survived the holiday break.
• The Islanders had a full morning skate at their practice facility. Kyle Palmieri, Cal Clutterbuck, Adam Pelech, Semyon Varlamov and Simon Holmstrom are all day-to-day.
• Ilya Sorokin will start for New York.
• The Islanders used these lines and pairings, per Newsday's Andrew Gross:
Josh Bailey - Mat Barzal - Oliver Wahlstrom
Anders Lee - Brock Nelson - Anthony Beauvilli
Zach Parise - J-G Pageau - Casey Cizikas
Matt Martin - Aatu Raty - Hudson Fasching
Alexander Romanov - Noah Dobson
Parker Wotherspoon - Ryan Pulock
Sebastian Aho - Scott Mayfield
