CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins won't have either of their top two goaltenders for the regular season finale at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Casey DeSmith remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury after leaving Monday's game at second intermission.
It's not clear when or how Tristan Jarry was injured, but he was absent from Friday's practice at the Lemieux Complex.
Mike Sullivan said after practice that Jarry was day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Sullivan said that both Jarry and DeSmith would be unavailable for Saturday's game, but that both are expected to be back in time for the start of the playoffs.
That left Max Lagace and Emil Larmi as the two goaltenders in Friday's practice, with neither having any NHL time at any point earlier in this season. Alex D'Orio was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to the active roster after practice.
Sullivan wouldn't say who his starter would be, but Lagace would presumably be the starter on Saturday given that he was the backup when it was just DeSmith unavailable. Since D'Orio was recalled straight to the active roster and Larmi remains on the taxi squad, it would seem that D'Orio would be the backup.
Of Larmi, D'Orio and Lagace, Lagace is also the only one of the three with any prior NHL experience, with Lagace getting extended NHL time with the Golden Knights when he began the season as their third goaltender in their inaugural season. He appeared in 16 NHL games in 2017-18, and one game in 2018-19.
"It was a great time," Lagace said earlier this season of his stint in Vegas. "It came fast, I learned a lot from the experience about myself as a goalie. That made me grow into the goalie I am now. I've been in this position before, and I know what to kind of expect, or to not expect. It's just stay ready, work hard. That's how I've been my whole career. So I'm just going to stay here and wait for the opportunity, and I'll be ready whenever it comes."
Lagace has bounced between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Pittsburgh's taxi squad this season. He's played in nine games in the AHL this season, posting a 2.30 goals-against average and a.907 save percentage. His last game (and the only game he's played in almost four weeks) was on May 1, when he stopped 30 of 34 shots in an overtime loss to Hershey:
"He was amazing," defenseman Will Reilly said of Lagace after that game. "Max literally just stood on his head there. He kept us in the game the whole way."
In case you missed it, we spoke with goaltending development coach Andy Chiodo in the third segment of today's 66 to 87 podcast and I asked about Lagace:
"He's taken the ups and the downs of traveling between the taxi squad in really good stride," Chiodo said. "When he has played for us in Wilkes, he's been a gamer. He's had a good presence in the net, he's instilled a lot of confidence into the group here. He's at a good point in his career where he knows who and what he is as a goaltender. I actually think there's a lot of room for him to even grow and develop. Even though he's 27, he still has areas of his game that he can grow, which I think is exciting. He's a competitive guy. He plays with confidence, he plays with a good energy. I think he instills a belief in his team that he's going to be back there competing to make saves in his own way. It's not always going to be technically perfect, but that's part of what his makeup is."
After all of the ups and downs for Lagace this year, it looks like he'll get to finish the regular season on a high note with a return to the NHL.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• Sullivan said that Brandon Tanev will be out on Saturday. Tanev spoke for the first time since he was injured on April 4, and said he hopes to return for the playoffs.
"I'm starting to feel better," he said. "It's been nice to skate with the team. The team's playing really well right now, and I'm looking forward to the next week here in practice and working with the guys, building confidence and having fun out there. ... Our training staff does a phenomenal job of putting guys in the right position to get back to being healthy. That's what we're looking to do here with myself and some other guys, and hopefully be back in time for the playoffs. Take this extra week, work hard, get confident, and get out there with the team."
• Mike Matheson skated before practice with Ty Hennes for the first time, an encouraging step. He hasn't taken contact yet and has also been ruled out for tomorrow.
• Sullivan neglected to mention Evan Rodrigues when running down the injury list, which leads me to believe that he still hasn't skated.
• Colton Sceviour is set to play his 500th NHL game on Saturday.
"It's crazy to think that I have a chance to play 500," he said. "It's something I didn't see coming at certain points of my career, so it's awesome. I haven't fully reflected back on things by any means, I probably won't do that until I'm done done. But there's a lot of moments that were exciting. The thing I'm most excited about is playoffs starting next week. It's been awhile since I've been in a full playoff series, it's exciting that time of year coming."
• The only change to the Penguins' lines/pairings is that Chad Ruhwedel replaced Mark Friedman alongside Cody Ceci.
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Jared McCann-Jeff Carter-Frederick Gaudreau
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Colton Sceviour
(Sam Lafferty, Mark Jankowski, Brandon Tanev as extras)
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Chad Ruhwedel-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
(Juuso Riikola-Mark Friedman)
• There's still no set start date for the start of the playoffs. Other East Division teams finish their regular season schedule a few days later than the Penguins will, with the Islanders finishing on May 10, and the Capitals and Bruins going as late as May 11. After that, there's still expected to be some sort of pause before the playoffs begin. I asked Sceviour if he thinks the break could be a challenge for the Penguins when it comes to carrying this momentum over to the postseason.
"Maybe," he said. "Every team is dealing with it. The other playoff teams in our division do play a couple of games after us, but they'll still have four, five, six days, whatever the schedule looks like, break as well. It's just feeling comfortable with the game that you're bringing into the playoffs. I think taking the week or however long it might be to fine-tune some things might actually be a benefit, even. As long as you take advantage of that time, get guys rested, get guys recovered that might be dealing with that stuff, then just dial in those details and be ready to go whenever Game 1 is."
• Brian Dumoulin finally shaved the mustache. No word on why he let that thing ride out a week after his Mustache Boy sentence ended.
• It was a short practice, only about 20 minutes in total.
• After formal practice ends, most guys always stay on the ice to work on some extra stuff, like skills work with Hennes, or faceoffs with Mike Vellucci, or just shooting on their own at one end of the ice. The energy is always high for this part, and guys do over-the-top celebrations for goals. Bryan Rust at one point rode his stick all the way through one end of the ice while doing a windmill with one arm, easily the top celebration I've seen all year in these.
• Wexford native Michael Houser will get the start again for the Sabres on Saturday. The Sabres' only other healthy, available goaltender is Stefanos Lekkas, who is on a professional tryout contract after spending most of the year in the ECHL. Linus Ullmark, Carter Hutton, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen are all hurt, and Dustin Tokarski is away from the team due to a family matter.
