3 Things: Kahun practices, Zucker takes a breath and more

Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from the Penguins' Thursday practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex...

1. Kahun practices
Forward Dominik Kahun, who has missed the last six games with a concussion, returned to team practice wearing a gray no-contact jersey.
"We'll see how he responds to the practice today and then ultimately the next step is full contact before he returns to play," Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. "The fact that he re-joined the team is real encouraging from our standpoint because that means he's at the next stage."
Kahun was injured early in the second period of the Penguins' 4-3 win over Boston on Jan. 19. The timing was tough in the sense that the 24-year-old was settling into a top-six role on a line with Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust.
But the silver lining is that with the All-Star break and bye week happening soon after, Kahun hasn't missed a lot of games despite being sidelined for almost a month.
"It was bad timing for sure, unfortunately," Kahun said. "But that happens. On the other side, there was a break and I'm happy I didn't miss too many games."
Kahun was also happy to take the ice with his teammates after skating on his own with skills coach Ty Hennes for the past week.
"That's always nice to be with the guys again," Kahun said. "I'm still taking my time. I want to be 100 percent before I play again. Today was the non-contact jersey, I didn't do the drills where there were battles or guys hitting. I think pretty soon I'm going to be ready to play."

2. Zucker takes a breath
It's been chaos for newest Penguins winger Jason Zucker since he learned he was traded from Minnesota to Pittsburgh on Monday evening.
He made it just in time for his debut on Tuesday night against Tampa Bay. He then spent all day Wednesday making phone calls trying to figure out logistics and get his family - wife Carly and their three children - out to Pittsburgh this weekend before joining his teammates at the Night of Assists charity event at night.
Needless to say, Zucker was relieved to simply get some practice time in on Thursday with his new team and get familiarized with the systems and details.
"It was great," he said. "It was good just to be out there with the guys again and see how they practice and just try to handle the puck a little bit. I don't know why, but it feels like it's been a month since I've touched the puck (laughs). It was good to get out there and get a good skate."
Zucker could already see the difference from the first period to the third period of Tuesday's game in terms of getting acclimated, and he's excited to see how he continues to progress with time.
"Throughout (Pittsburgh's) system, they're reading plays a lot quicker and trying to get out of the zone quicker and using that tempo and pace," Zucker said. "Whereas in Minnesota, everything was a little bit different with how we broke out the puck and different plays. It'll just be getting used to that, but I think even from the first to the third was a little better. So I think from game one to game five will be a big adjustment. It will be great."
3. Workflow
Here are the lines, D-pairs and power-play units the Penguins practiced with…
Zucker-Crosby-Simon
McCann-Malkin-Rust
Aston-Reese-Blueger-Tanev
Lafferty-Agozzino-Hornqvist
Johnson-Letang
Pettersson-Schultz
Riikola-Ruhwedel
First power-play unit: Letang, Crosby, Malkin, Hornqvist, Rust
Second power-play unit: Schultz, Pettersson, Zucker, McCann, Simon