3 Things: Kapanen Update, Scrimmage Notes and More

Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from Day 5 of training camp at PPG Paints Arena.

1. Kapanen update
Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said that forward Kasperi Kapanen, who has been dealing with immigration issues, will arrive in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
Per NHL's COVID-19 protocols, Kapanen will have to undergo a mandatory seven-day quarantine process with testing on days 1, 3, 5 and 7 before he can be cleared to join the team.
As of now, Sullivan said it's too early to say when Kapanen will make his Penguins debut, as they need to gauge his fitness level and comfort level with how the Penguins are trying to play. But Sullivan will be having a lot of interaction with Kapanen during his quarantine period to get him up to speed as much as possible.
"We're going to introduce our team concept to him through that process so that he has the ability to make sure he's learning Penguins hockey," Sullivan said. "So that when we do get him in the practice environment and we can get him with the group, that he's going to be able to hit the ground running."
2. "Control the controllables"
The Kapanen situation is one example of the variables that come along with starting the season in the midst of a pandemic, with two other teams experiencing COVID-19 disruptions on Friday when the NHL announced that six Dallas Stars players and two staff members have recently confirmed tests for COVID-19 while the Columbus Blue Jackets announced that they had held a number of players out of their scheduled practice due to an abundance of caution.
"There's definitely going to be times throughout the year where things are affected by it," Bryan Rust said. "I think we just got to expect that that's going to happen, and we got to take things as they come."
From Day 1 of training camp, Sullivan said he has discussed with his players about mitigating the risk as much as possible. Casey DeSmith said Sullivan talked to them about the NFL season, and that the league's top teams were the ones who had the fewest amount of missed games and uninterrupted practices.
"But having said that, the pandemic is at its height right now in our in our country," Sullivan said. "So we're going to control what we can to try to put our team in the best possible position and mitigate the risk. And we'll just have to react accordingly to what comes our way."
"We're doing everything we can as an organization," DeSmith said. "There's tons of efforts behind the scenes just to try and keep us as safe as possible, and we appreciate that. We're just trying to be as careful as possible to be respectful of our teammates and coaches and stuff. Just kind of a team effort to keep each other safe."
3. Practice and scrimmage notes
There wasn't much to report from the main group practice except that everyone - both the coaches and players - seemed more vocal than usual. They spent a lot of time doing small-area work and battle drills, with the guys hooting and hollering at each other and Sullivan barking out instructions and feedback.
Assistant coach Todd Reirden did the same thing when it came to the power play, which did a few minutes of work before the intra-squad scrimmage began. And I have to say, that first unit looked especially good today. The puck movement between Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust was just beautiful to watch. It was quick, it was crisp and it just looked effortless. Rust got on the board when he finished off some tic-tac-toe passing from the side of an open net.
Later, Team Black got its first intra-squad scrimmage victory of training camp, defeating Team Gold 2-1. It consisted of two 15-minute periods, with Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith playing in the first and Alex D'Orio and Maxime Lagace getting their first action of camp in the second.
Drew O'Connor got on the board first for Team Gold. The rookie forward, who has been with the main group this entire camp thus far, looked especially strong today. He forced a turnover and got a shorthanded breakaway against the second power-play unit during practice, and followed that up with a goal in the scrimmage. To make it even better, O'Connor scored with the same stick Crosby had borrowed from him when he broke his own during special teams work.
Evan Rodrigues finished off a chance from the slot tie the score 1-1. He's been consistently getting to that spot and getting open, earning a number of good looks from that area the last couple of practices and games, so it was good to see him bury one today.
Jared McCann broke the tie in the final seconds with a slick goal. He took a pass at the top of the crease, pulled the puck between his legs and beat D'Orio with a forehand shot. I said it Tuesday, and I'll say it again: when McCann has that swagger, he's a fun player to watch. If he can keep his confidence up throughout the course of the season, he can be a real impact player for the Penguins.
\Here's how the lines looked…
TEAM BLACK
Guentzel-Crosby-Rodrigues
McCann-Jankowski-Lafferty
Poulin-Gaudreau-Angello
Zohorna
Pettersson-Marino
Matheson-Ceci
Joseph-Maniscalco
DeSmith
Lagace
TEAM GOLD
Zucker-Malkin-Rust
Tanev-Blueger-Sceviour
O'Connor-Currie-Legare
Nolan
Dumoulin-Letang
Riikola-Ruhwedel
Lee-Trotman
Jarry
D'Orio
\Players in bold skated in those combinations during the main group practice, with O'Connor rotating in on the Blueger line.