3 Things: Crosby close to return, workflow and more
1. Crosby continues to progress
Pens captain Sidney Crosby continues to progress in his recovery from an upper-body injury that has forced him to miss the last three games. After participating in Monday's morning skate in a non-contact fashion, he got a full-contact practice in with his teammates on Tuesday.
"It's good to get out there with the guys, to just compete and get back to doing those regular things," Crosby said. "Just being able to get contact and do regular drills, I think that's a good sign. It feels good to be able to do those things."
Crosby skated in line rushes and practiced on the power play, both positive signs. There's a chance he could return to the lineup on Wednesday versus Dallas depending on how he feels tomorrow.
"He looks pretty close to me," Pens head coach Mike Sullivan said. "He had a strong practice today. We'll see how he responds. His status is still day-to-day, but obviously he had a real good practice today and that's encouraging."
If he is able to go, Crosby said it will be important for him to not try and do too much in an effort to single-handedly snap them out of their current funk that's seen Pittsburgh lose nine of their last 10 games.
"It's not my first time coming back in the lineup," he said. "I think just trying to use that experience as far as preparing. Make sure when it's time you go out there, play the right way and don't try and change anything. That's important that you have that mindset."
2. Workflow
Evgeni Malkin was the only expected player missing from practice, and Sullivan said he was given a maintenance day. These are the lines the Pens used…
Guentzel-Crosby- Hornqvist
Pearson-Sheahan-Kessel
Aston-Reese-Brassard-Simon
Rust-Grant-Sprong
If Crosby is able to return on Wednesday, the Pens might try to reignite an old flame by putting him between two wingers he has comfortability with.
"He's played a lot with those two guys and they have had success in the past," Sullivan said. "I think right now, both Jake and Horny are playing extremely well. There's definitely familiarity if we so choose to go that route."
The power-play units were as follows:
Letang, Kessel, Crosby, Hornqvist and Guentzel.
Maatta, Riikola, Brassard, Pearson and Simon.
3. Sullivan talks team identity
When Sullivan first arrived in Pittsburgh almost three years ago, he emphasized the importance of establishing a team identity. "When our opponents have a meeting to prepare to play the Penguins, what are they saying about this group? If 29 teams are saying the same thing, then we have accomplished creating an identity," he said.
The Pens built that identity around three elements: resiliency, compete and perhaps most importantly, speed. They went on to win back-to-back Stanley Cup championships playing that style, and as a result, the rest of the league started to emulate it.
Today, Sullivan was asked about the criticism that the Pens maybe don't have the speed advantage they once had with other teams getting faster, but they're still trying to play the same way tactically. When asked if he found any validity in that criticism, Sullivan gave a lengthy, impassioned response that we thought was worth posting in its entirety.
"I would agree that the league is getting faster. I would agree that for the most part, it's a copycat league. Teams tend to emulate the teams that have success. When you look at our team over the last handful of seasons. We've had pretty good success with a certain style of play. That style of play is built on the core of our team. When you look at the core of our players - Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Letang - all of those guys can skate. They can still skate. We believe that there is a certain way or a certain style of play that gives our team the best chance to win.
"Now, have some teams closed the speed gap? For sure. I think that's just the evolution of the game. Show me a team in the league that's trying to play slow that's winning. Show me a team in the league that's trying to play on their heels that's winning. It's easy to throw darts and suggest that the style of play is the reason why that we're having the struggles that we're having. We can do a better job executing. We can make smarter decisions as a group. We can work together and work cooperatively together. I think there's an assumption out there that we just threw caution to the wind and that there's no calculation to our game and our aggression. You know, there's an inherent risk in being passive out there too and letting teams come at you. When you look at the core of our team, our team can still skate. Now can other teams skate too? Sure they can. But we are by no means a slow hockey team. We can still skate.
"And when you look at some of the players we have, we have the ability to move the puck. There's no better speed game than your ability to change the point of attack because you can move the puck. We believe we have some players on our team that can do that as well. We certainly as a coaching staff go through our due diligence before every season and during the season we have made subtle tweaks to our overall team concept to try to have our guys have success. I'm not going to share that with you guys. You can figure that out on your own if you watch it closely. We have made some subtle tweaks and adjustments to try and be a team that's more difficult to play against. But certainly, from a style standpoint or from a team concept or team strategy standpoint, we believe from the bottom of our heart that we're playing the game that gives our core players the best chance to be successful."
