3 Things: Practice in Anaheim
1. Murray remains status quo
Goaltender Matt Murray is on the West Coast trip and skated with the team today, but remains status quo. He has missed the last two games for personal reasons.
"His status is the same," head coach Mike Sullivan said. "Matt's just going to be a day-to-day situation. We'll see how it goes tomorrow and we'll make decisions day-to-day."
2. Happy anniversary
The Ducks traded Carl Hagelin to the Penguins exactly two years ago today. When he first got the news that he was going to Pittsburgh, he never could have envisioned that he would return to Anaheim a two-time Stanley Cup champion just 24 months later.
"At the time, you're kind of shocked when you get the call," he said. "Obviously I knew going to Pittsburgh there's a lot of good players and a great organization, so I was looking forward to that opportunity. There were guys on this team that had won the Cup before and when you have two superstar players like 'Geno' and 'Sid' and then you add Phil and 'Tanger' to the mix, you know you have a good chance."
Hagelin enters Wednesday's game against his former team playing his best hockey of the season.
Playing on a line with Malkin and Patric Hornqvist, Hagelin has gotten on the scoresheet in three straight games (1G-3A-4P) and is coming off his first multiple-point effort of the season in Sunday's 5-2 win over New York. He's been feeling good for a while now, and it's translating to the scoresheet.
"For me, it's all about how I feel on my skates when I feel like I can move the way I want to out there and I can skate the way I want to," he said. "The game gets a lot easier. It's different for every guy. Some guys like to have their hands feel a hundred percent and other guys just want their mind to feel 100 percent. But for me, it's when my skates and my legs are feeling the way they need to feel so that I can play my best."
Hagelin tends to find his game during the second half of the season, almost like he's building up steam for the first half of the year before exploding down the stretch.
"I wish it wasn't like that, but usually that's been the case," he admitted. "Around Christmas I start finding my legs and my skating and hopefully that's the case."
3. Workflow
The Pens used the same lines and D-pairs that have been working for them throughout their four-game win streak…
Simon-Crosby-Sprong
Hagelin-Malkin-Hornqvist
Sheary-Guentzel-Kessel
Kuhnhackl-Sheahan-Reaves
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Schultz
Hunwick-Oleksiak
"It's been good," Sullivan said about settling into some consistency with the combinations. "We've wanted to do this for a long time, it's just that circumstances haven't always allowed us. We think our team is the hardest to play against when we have the balance through our lineup, when we have the ability to play four lines because we don't tax guys. That helps us to play at the pace we want to play.
"We really haven't been able to do that with any level of consistency up until probably the last few weeks. We're going to try and do that as much as we can moving forward because we think it gives our team the best chance to win."
