Jamie Oleksiak was diagnosed with a concussion, Mike Sullivan confirmed before the Penguins' game Thursday night against the Wild. Oleksiak left the Penguins' 2-1 win a night earlier in Washington following a fight with Tom Wilson:
Sullivan had no further detail on Oleksiak. The team never gives a timetable on possible returns from concussions.
Juuso Riikola will likely take Oleksiak's place in the lineup. Both Riikola and Oleksiak are comfortable playing on the right side of the ice. After playing nearly an entire game short a defenseman, Sullivan is looking forward to the flexibility of having six defensemen in the lineup again tonight.
Dominik Simon will play tonight, Sullivan confirmed before Thursday's game against the Wild.
Simon has been out of the Penguins' lineup since Dec. 4 with a lower-body injury sustained against the Avalanche:
In Simon's absence, Bryan Rust had been bumped to the Penguins' first line alongside with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel. Rust has recorded six goals and two assists in the eight games in that span. The first line has a Corsi-For Percentage of 53.50 with Rust on the top line, and 64.35 with Simon on the top line.
• Twenty-four hours after playing -- and beating -- the defending Stanley Cup champions in a hostile environment in Washington, the Penguins are faced with a much different task.
The Penguins have to put that emotional win behind them and hope they have enough left in the tank to beat a Wild team that might have lost seven of their last 10 but has also been a playoff team the last six years. Of the NHL's 31 teams, only the Penguins (12) have a longer run of consecutive playoff appearances.
"Obviously last night, against a divisional rival, there's lots of history between the two teams," Sullivan said. "They're always emotional games. It had a playoff feel to it. Everyone was pretty invested in that win. The challenge is that we have to come back and do it again. That's the nature of this league. We want to try and build on the momentum from that win. Obviously, we were thrilled with the effort. Thought it was a real character win from our players' standpoint. I give our players and our leadership group a lot of credit for stepping up to a difficult challenge, but now we've got to move by it."
• One player who is going to have to dig a little deeper, if possible, tonight is Kris Letang. Down to five defenseman vs. the Capitals after Oleksiak went down, the 31-year-old played 32:22. That's well above his season average of 26:07, which is third among all defenseman.
"I just think Kris is unique player and his fitness level is really high," Sullivan said. "He's one guy that can handle a high workload and has always shown an ability to do so. We don't want to get him in that range every single night but, on occasion, if that's what's called for to win a game, we know he's capable. He certainly showed that last night."
• Sullivan says there's advantages to having Phil Kessel play either side of the power play, but the biggest is that it keeps opponents guessing.
"It's just a different look," Sullivan said. "It presents different challenges on the penalty kill. It opens up different options. We're trying to become a power play that's a little less predictable, that has more looks. That's certainly one of them. It's a common look in the league, we're not the only ones doing it. But it is an option for our team."