Pittsburgh Penguins Star Sidney Crosby Day-To-Day; Kris Letang Practices
Struggling through the least productive year of his career, Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby has missed practice today and is considered day-to-day with a lower body injury.
Pittsburgh Penguins Head Coach Mike Sullivan said this afternoon that Sidney Crosby would miss practice with a lower body injury.
“Sid has a lower body injury. Right now his status is day to day. We’ll see how he is tomorrow,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan also noted that the injury is believed to have occurred during the 3rd period of last night’s 2-1 loss to Carolina.
The Pens play host to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night in the midst of a five game losing streak. The last matchup between the two teams featured Brandon Dubinsky‘s cross-check on Sidney Crosby that later earned him a one-game suspension.
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It also inspired new Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella to say that the “Pittsburgh whines enough for the whole league”.
Jenn Menendez reported that Crosby will play if he’s capable and won’t be held out to get him extra rest over the holiday break.
“I don’t think there’s any temptation. If Sid can play, he’ll play,” said Sullivan. “That’s the type of guy that he is. We’ll make that decision tomorrow. We’ll see how he is.”
From a fan perspective, I want to see Crosby in the lineup against Dubinsky again. I want to see the Pittsburgh Penguins bust out of this rut and take it to a team that tried to bully them off the ice in the Pens loss on November 27th.
Despite his downturn in production, Crosby does have 19 points in his last 23 games after tallying just 3 points in his first 9 games.
His return to prominence will be the key to unlocking the Pens offensive struggles for Mike Sullivan, so hopefully the injury is as minor as they seem to imply.
Kris Letang
On the good news front, the Penguins did have star defender Kris Letang on the ice for practice on Sunday.
The Penguins official site had a few quotes from the head coach and his defenseman:
"“We’re obviously excited to see him out there,” Sullivan said with a smile. “That means he’s that much closer to playing. That’s certainly an important step for us.”Letang stayed on the ice for the duration of the practice and wore a yellow no-contact jersey. Progressing to contact will be the next step.“I felt pretty good,” Letang said. “It was the first step. Obviously it’s better than skating on your own and doing drills by yourself. It’s improving. Tomorrow we’ll try to get a little bit more in and see how it goes.”Overall, Letang – the Pens’ top-scoring defenseman who ranks sixth among league blueliners in time on ice per game with an average of 26:15 – has missed five straight games and seven of the last eight games with two different injuries."
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The return of Letang would be a huge boost to a lineup that is looking for answers to this goal-scoring drought in every corner and crevasse.
While Olli Maatta has had a nice comeback and Trevor Daley was seen pleasant returns thus far, there’s no doubt that the Pittsburgh Penguins could use the skills of Letang in a very shaky defensive corps.