Do you want the good news first or the bad news?
I'll start with the good news.
After being banged up in the third period of Tuesday's game and missing Wednesday's practice, John Marino will play tonight against the Bruins.
"Marino is fine," Mike Sullivan said.
The bad news is that Brian Dumoulin is week-to-week with a lower-body injury sustained last game. He appeared to get injured in the final seconds of the second period, falling awkwardly:
"The message to the players is when someone goes down, we need to make sure that we pick each other up and play a diligent game," Sullivan said of the latest hit to the defense corps. "It will provide an opportunity for others."
At least for tonight, that opportunity will not go to Yannick Weber, who was signed to a one-year deal yesterday to provide relief to the ailing blue line. He won't be available for the game to take Dumoulin's place.
Weber doesn't have to go through the week-long quarantine for COVID protocol. Weber is unavailable because he got caught in a snowstorm on the way to Boston. The good news there is that he's expected to be available for the next series of games against the Rangers in New York.
That means that Kevin Czuczman, the lone defenseman on the taxi squad, will get into his first NHL game since 2013-14 tonight, giving the Penguins six healthy defensemen. The Penguins activated Czuczman from the taxi squad on an emergency basis on Thursday evening, all but making it official that he will play.
Since Pierre-Olivier Joseph finished Tuesday's game on the top pairing, I'd expect the pairings tonight to shake out like this:
P.O Joseph-Kris Letang
John Marino-Cody Ceci
Kevin Czuczman-Chad Ruhwedel
The Penguins made other roster moves before Thursday's game.
Anthony Angello, Frederick Gaudreau, Will Reilly, and Yannick Weber were assigned to the taxi squad, giving the Penguins a full six-man taxi squad to go along with goaltenders Alex D'Orio and Max Lagace.
Drew O'Connor's recall was converted to an emergency recall to a standard recall, and Sam Lafferty was added to the roster from the taxi squad on a standard recall.
To create cap room for the additions on the NHL roster, Zach Aston-Reese was placed on long-term injured reserve retroactive to January 13, Juuso Riikola was placed on LTIR retroactive to January 19, and Evan Rodrigues has been placed on LTIR retroactive to January 24. Marcus Pettersson was also placed on standard injured reserve.