Inside Scoop: 2020-21 Training Camp (Day 2)

Thoughts, musings and observations from Day 2 of training camp at PPG Paints Arena, where the Penguins held their first intra-squad scrimmage.

* Kasperi Kapanen missed a second straight day as he continues to deal with immigration issues that have kept him from arriving in Pittsburgh.
New dad Colton Sceviour, who was excused from practice yesterday for the birth of his child, was welcomed back with congratulatory stick taps from his teammates before practice got underway.
Drew O'Connor remained with the main group, who skated for about 45 minutes before their first intra-squad scrimmage got underway.
* All of the taxi squad players except for goalies Maxime Lagace and Alex D'Orio participated in the scrimmage, which consisted of two 20-minute periods with a running clock. Skating and skills development coach Ty Hennes and player development coach Tom Kostopoulos served as the referees.
Tristan Jarry was in net for Team Gold, while Casey DeSmith was in goal for Team Black.
Here's how the lines looked…
TEAM GOLD
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Colton Sceviour-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Drew O'Connor-Josh Currie-Nathan Legare
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Cam Lee-Zach Trotman
Juuso Riikola-Chad Ruhwedel
(Riikola also took some reps with Dumoulin and Letang)
TEAM BLACK
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Evan Rodrigues
Jared McCann-Mark Jankowski-Sam Lafferty
Sam Poulin-Frederick Gaudreau-Anthony Angello
Jordan Nolan-Pavel Zohorna-Sam Miletic
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Pierre-Olivier Joseph-Kevin Czuczman
Josh Maniscalco
Team Gold won by a score of 3-0. Here's how the goals were scored…
1) Zucker struck on the first shift when a defensive miscue resulted in some scrambling around the crease. He pounced on the loose puck and buried it past DeSmith. Right before that, Crosby's line iced the puck off the opening faceoff and Malkin immediately started yelling. We missed you, Geno.
2) Sceviour, armed with that new dad energy, finished off a nice feed from Blueger few minutes later.
3) Team Gold capitalized on another defensive miscue in the second half when Malkin gobbled up a turnover and took his linemates up the ice on a 3-on-0 rush. He gave it over to Rust, who went forehand-backhand and absolutely sniped a shot into the near top corner.
A few observations from the scrimmage…
* Team Black may not have scored, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Guentzel particular had a couple of golden chances.
He gave Jarry his first real test in the first half when he picked off Dumoulin's attempted D-to-D pass at his own blue line and went in on a breakaway. Letang turned on the jets and nearly caught him, but Guentzel was able to get off a shot that Jarry stopped. You could hear Guentzel's dismay from all the way up in the press box.
Guentzel had another quality chance towards the end of the game off a beautiful feed from Crosby (what else is new?). Jarry saved that one as well.
"First one, he made a nice, good glove save on me with a little pressure from the back," Guentzel said. "The second one, I couldn't really get it to settle, so I didn't really know what to do. Obviously, I got to work on scoring those ones for the season (laughs), so hopefully I saved them."
* Having a shortened camp with no preseason games is a challenge for everyone, but especially for Jarry and DeSmith, as goalies arguably benefit the most from exhibition contests when it comes to speed and timing. In order to get as sharp as possible within the circumstances, Jarry said their approach to getting as sharp as possible is to get better every day.
"That's been our mindset so far," Jarry said. "Just get ready as quick as we can."
* I thought Zucker looked really good. You can just tell that he's so much more comfortable within the Penguins system. He was getting to all of the right spots and using his speed to make plays. I think him, Malkin and Rust could have something special this season.
* McCann was someone else who had a lot of jump in his step, which is great to see. Especially because McCann has admitted that he's someone who can get in his own head and grip the stick too tight as a result. But when he's got that confidence and swagger, he's a fun player to watch.
On one shift, McCann circled behind his own net, dished to Lafferty, sprinted up the ice and yelled for the puck back. On another shift, he got himself in position for a good scoring chance from Lafferty.
Right now, McCann is slotted in on the third line with Jankowski and Lafferty, and the trio seemed to be reading and reacting off of each other really well. But as Sullivan said yesterday, they feel strongly that McCann can play in the top-six, so we'll see what happens.