Penguins Have a Productive Practice After Arriving Home

After traveling home from their five-game road trip on Sunday, the Penguins skated at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex on Monday. Here are the updates.

LINEUP UPDATES
Kris Letang stayed home because he was sick, while Jeff Carter is continuing to be evaluated for a lower-body injury suffered in the second period of Saturday's 3-1 loss to Seattle. That meant Drew O'Connor got the call-up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
"Found out last night, it was a little bit later, so drove in this morning," he said. "It was kind of an early morning, but pretty excited to be back here."
O'Connor slotted into Carter's spot between Danton Heinen and Kasperi Kapanen during line rushes. He's earned this opportunity because of his ability to play center and kill penalties, and of course, because of performance.
"His last three games, he's been one of their best players, if not their best," Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. "He's played very well."
After making the opening-night roster last season, O'Connor was re-assigned to WBS after playing in three preseason games. The 24-year-old is the first to admit he didn't have the best training camp with Pittsburgh, and that carried over into his start with WBS. But O'Connor feels he's gotten back to what he does best, recording two goals, four assists and six points in eight total AHL games.
"I just think I wasn't hunting pucks as much as I can - getting in on the forecheck, making the plays I know I can make," said O'Connor, who's appeared in 32 total NHL games. "So I think for me, it was just kind of dialing it in a little bit more, working even harder. I think once I did that, I kind of started getting to my game a little bit more."

Here is the workflow that Pittsburgh used…
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Malkin-Rakell
Heinen-O'Connor-Kapanen
McGinn-Poehling-Archibald
Teddy Blueger, who has yet to make his season debut as he recovers from an upper-body injury sustained during training camp, participated in a full capacity. He did rushes with the defense.
The Penguins had a healthy top-six for that game against the Kraken, with Jake Guentzel returning after missing four games with an ear injury, and Jason Zucker returning after missing two games with an undisclosed injury. "No issues (now), I feel great," Zucker said. "It was good to be back. You never want to miss time, obviously. And for me, it seems like it's all I've done lately. So I'm trying to stay healthy and do what I can to stay in the lineup."
Up until Saturday, when everyone was healthy, Rakell had stayed on a line with the captain. Sullivan said that swapping him and Rust had always been an option, and a decision that had been thoroughly thought through.
"We have options there, and we anticipated that going into the season," Sullivan said. "We have options in the top-six where we can move people around Sid and Geno, so that we can try to give them both what they need to do what they do best, and help us create the balance that we need."
BACK TO WORK
The western Canada road trip is always a challenging one, with Crosby saying as much before the team left last Friday. And while it got off to a great start, with Pittsburgh winning the first game in Columbus to improve to 4-0-1 on the season, the Penguins then lost four in a row.
After getting back late yesterday afternoon, the coaching staff held a productive film session with the group this morning, showing them examples and visuals of what their best game looks like.
"They showed us some clips today of getting to the net front and trying to be around there a little bit more," Zucker said. "I think a lot of the time, when you're fighting it, you're trying to do too much. So I think if we can just get back to a simple game, that worked really well for us the first few. It's just keep it simple, get shots on net, crash the net and bang in some rebounds."

From there, Sullivan said he felt the team had a spirited practice, saying the energy was good. "I thought it was a productive day," he said. From here, the Penguins will be looking to get back on track at PPG Paints Arena Tuesday evening when they host the red-hot Boston Bruins for 'Pittsburgh Night.'
"We're really looking forward to it," Zucker said. "It's always nice. It's a tough back-to-back for us, starting at home and then heading right out to Buffalo. So we got to make sure we're coming strong. But it's nice to be home, and hopefully we can enjoy Halloween tonight with the family, and get back after it."