The Penguins will be without recently-acquired forward Nick Bonino in the lineup for the foreseeable future.
Mike Sullivan said in his pregame media availability prior to Saturday's 3:38 p.m. matchup against the Flyers that Bonino was injured in Thursday's loss to the Islanders. Bonino was complaining of not feeling right after the game, and the team sent him to the hospital to be evaluated, where it was discovered he suffered a lacerated kidney. Bonino underwent a procedure at the hospital and was released on Saturday.
Sullivan added that Bonino's prognosis was "encouraging," but said that he's considered week-to-week for now.
"It's hard," Sullivan said of Bonino's injury. "He's a great guy, he's a real good player. We wee all excited to get him involved here for so many reasons. He's a great voice in the locker room, and he'll continue to be that for us. Our hope is that he'll be on the mend, hopefully sooner than later."
Bonino's injury is what necessitated the emergency recall to Alex Nylander on Friday evening. We've explained at length here the limitations in converting Nylander to a standard recall before Ryan Poehling comes off of long-term injured reserve, due to the cap constraints and standard recall limits imposed on teams for the rest of the regular season after the trade deadline. Bonino's injury may ease those constraints, depending on how long he is to be sidelined.
If Bonino is put on long-term injured reserve retroactive to Thursday, the earliest he could return would be April 4 in New Jersey. If he is expected to be out at least that long, then the Penguins could get salary cap relief on his $1.025 million cap hit. Nylander could stay up on an emergency recall until Poehling comes back, then wouldn't have to be sent down for cap constraints like he otherwise would. He could stay up and be converted to a standard recall, and his $750,000 cap hit would be covered by Bonino's cap relief after the Penguins lose the $750,000 relief of Poehling's cap hit.
Regardless of how the roster and cap situation plays out then, Nylander at least has a big opportunity ahead of him in the short term.
"It's a great opportunity," Sullivan said of Nylander. "Anytime you get a chance to play in the NHL as a young player, it's a great opportunity to establish yourself and help our team win. We believe he can do that."
There's a brief sample size of Nylander's NHL body of work this season -- just Tuesday's game against the Blue Jackets. But he certainly made a good impression in that one game.
"In the game that he played the other night, I thought he played extremely well," Sullivan said. "He's a smart player, he has the ability to read plays and anticipate to get to the puck and get to people in timely fashion because of his recognition skills, his anticipation. He has a good stick, he's strong on the puck. From what I've seen of his game to this point, I think he has the ability to be good in the pursuit game. We know he has real good playmaking abilities, his possession game is probably what everyone looks to as his strength, but I think he's real capable in the pursuit game also."
The Penguins are going to need Nylander to keep showing those strengths in the games ahead as he steps into the opportunity ahead of him.
