Injuries taking biggest toll on PK

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Broken bones, pulled muscles, cuts and missing teeth are just a part of the game, they say. Injuries are 100-percent guaranteed in this league, they say. All of which might be true, but they usually don't happen all at once.

Sidney Crosby couldn't recall it happening before. Neither could Matt Cullen.

"Sometimes it seems like it goes that way," Crosby was saying Friday morning at KeyBank Center. "One guy goes down and all of a sudden they go down in bunches."

Seemingly, that is what has happened to the Penguins who will be missing a quarter of their lineup tonight against the Sabres. Nowhere are those injuries felt more than on the team's penalty killing unit. Once ranked among the league's top five, it's now 17th at 80.1 percent. They've yielded 11 goals in the last 34 chances, including five goals in the last three games. And there's little reason to believe it's going to get better soon.

So what's happened?

Consider the following: Six of the Penguins' top eight in average shorthanded ice time this season are either currently injured (Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin, Olli Maatta and Bryan Rust) or have been traded (Carl Hagelin and Riley Sheahan).

Up front, the penalty killing units shown during Friday's morning skate had Matt Cullen with Zach Aston-Reese on one pair and Jared McCann on the other with Teddy Blueger and Garrett Wilson sharing reps. Only Cullen started the season in Pittsburgh. Needless to say, that's a far cry from the experience and chemistry that the Penguins had just a few short weeks ago.

Obviously, it's a challenge but Mike Sullivan says it's an opportunity for youngsters like Blueger, Wilson, Aston-Reese and Zach Trotman.

"We've got to get the job done," the coach said. "We're trying to keep it simple on the PK, regardless of who's in. Obviously, the guys that are out are important guys for us, but we have capable guys in the lineup. It's going to be a great opportunity for some of these guys to step up and make a contribution, and play a more significant role. Our guys need to step up and embrace that challenge."

Cullen admits the instability has been a factor. How can it not?

"It's nice when you can develop a comfort level with each other," Cullen said. "Things happen really fast when you're killing penalties, having a confident understanding of where you're leaning and where you're going to be going. It helps. You have to do it on the fly and in a hurry."

The key, Cullen says, is communication. It's done not so much on the ice but before the game, after the game and on the bench between plays:

As Cullen pointed out, the Penguins won a Stanley Cup without Letang in 2017. It can happen. The Penguins currently sit out of a playoff spot as the calendar turned to March, the last full month of the regular season. But no one's going to feel sorry for the Penguins with the offensive talent they still have, Cullen said. The injuries, he says, can become a galvanizing rallying cry.

"You have no choice but to rally around it," he said. "If you sit there and say 'How are we not in the mix?'; it is what it is. It's a good league, a lot of good teams. It's about facing adversity and and handling it and finding a way to get the best out of your group the last 19 games. When you get in, it's who knows."

THE ESSENTIALS

• Media notes

• Team statistics

• NHL scoreboard

• NHL standings

THE SESSION

• Sullivan said that neither Letang nor Dumoulin made the trip, meaning they won't play tomorrow night in Montreal either. One "encouraging" sign is that Dumoulin skated on his own yesterday.

• Teddy Blueger was sent down to Wilkes-Barre on Monday. But after Rust went down Tuesday in Columbus, the Latvian-born forward was right back on Wednesday. After scoring three goals in nine NHL games, Blueger is confident in his ability at this level but says he's probably not going to be able to keep up that kind of goal-scoring pace.

"I was hoping to be able to score here," he said. "Obviously, it's a small sample size. I don't think I've shown I can score necessarily yet. Still a long way to go to that but, hopefully, I'm going in the right direction."

• Erik Gudbranson, who hasn't played in a week, will make his Penguins debut after being acquired from the Canucks on Monday. The big defenseman says he's excited in a good way.

"Just want to get out there," he said. "It's a big two points for us. Looking at the standings, it's pretty tight. It's going to take a big effort, excited to be a part of it."

As expected, due to injuries, Gudbranson will be skating with Marcus Pettersson on a second pair that stands a combined 12-foot-8.  Pettersson said it will take some time to learn each other's tendencies but there's no better teacher than game experience. "Playing a game right away helps," he said.

• Matt Murray will get the start in goal. He is 3-0-0 despite an .894 save percentage with a 3.51 goals-against average in his career vs. the Sabres.

• Phil Kessel was back on a loaded-up first power-play unit after a brief stint on the second. The first unit had Kessel with Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Patric Hornqvist and Justin Schultz. The second had Jake Guentzel, Nick Bjugstad, Dom Simon, Juuso Riikola and Pettersson.

• Sullivan gave a forceful defense of Simon, who will skate on the third line with Bjugstad and McCann. Sullivan said, if anything, that he's been guilty of not putting Simon in positions to produce more. Simon had been at a half-point per game pace over the first 40 games, but has fallen off since. His last goal came Jan. 19 in Vegas. Since then, he has just three assists.

"He's a good two-way player and I think he gets under-appreciated in that regard," Sullivan said. "There's a lot of subtleties to Dom's game that helps the lines that he's on be effective."

• After an off-day on Thursday, all expected players took the ice.

• When Jack Eichel's overtime goal beat the Penguins 5-4 at :45 of overtime on Nov. 19, the Sabres were the toast of the NHL. That win improved them to 13-6-2 and there was every reason to believe that the young Sabres would reach the postseason for the first time since 2010-11. However, that may have been the high-water mark. Since Dec. 1, the Sabres have gone 12-19-5 and are now eight points out of a wildcard spot. Though their season appears to have slipped away, Jeff Skinner says they can't think that way.

"I think for us, you just have to worry about trying to pick up as many points as we can," Buffalo's leading goal scorer (36) said. "The only way we can do that is focus on the game at hand. Tonight's a good challenge for us. Regardless of who we play, we have to pick up points."

• Scott Wilson won a pair of Stanley Cup rings in Pittsburgh, but tonight will be his first regular-season game against his former team. It will be just his fourth game this season after the 26-year-old suffered a fractured ankle in September that required surgery. That's the same ankle he broke in the spring of 2016 with the Penguins.

"I've got a wooden leg over here," he joked. "I kind of knew what to expect a little bit. It's still a long process and it's slow."

After playing 17 games in Rochester, Wilson is back and looking to give the Sabres' bottom six a late-season spark.

"We've got a lot of good young guys that can make plays, good goalie," Wilson said. "There's a few adjustments we need to make, but we're headed in the right direction,"

• Carter Hutton is 3-0-0 with two shutouts in five career games against the Penguins, including a 36-save performance in the Sabres' win at PPG Paints Arena on Nov. 24. He has a .956 save percentage and a 1.36 goals-against average in his career vs. Pittsburgh. Naturally, Linus Ullmark will make the start for Buffalo. It's his first against the Penguins.

• Eichel enters tonight’s game on a six-game point streak (4G-4A). With a point tonight, he would tie his longest streak of the season.

• Entering tonight, Rasmus Dahlin, the first overall pick in last year's draft, leads rookie defensemen and is ranked second among all rookies in points (37) and assists (29).

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY