CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Something extraordinary happened at the Penguins' practice at the Lemieux Complex on Wednesday.
For the first time this season, all of the regulars from the NHL roster were healthy and in attendance for practice.
With Zach Aston-Reese, Danton Heinen and Casey DeSmith all rejoining the group after testing positive for COVID during the western road trip, nobody is left in COVID protocol for the Penguins.
"For us to get our full team out there for practice, I think it gives us excitement to see new guys and new faces," Jake Guentzel said. "It's been a long time coming. I think we're excited to get in the game and see how it goes."
By the looks of the personnel combinations used in practice, Aston-Reese, Heinen and DeSmith might not quite be ready to play when the Penguins play the Senators Thursday evening at PPG Paints Arena. All were quarantined in their hotel rooms in Anaheim while positive, and this was their first day back on the ice. While Mike Sullivan said that all three are "technically" available for Thursday, whether they'll actually play is a different question.
DeSmith and Louis Domingue rotated in one net, with Domingue taking on the bulk of the work in the five-on-five line rushes. The line combinations used remained the same as Monday's game in Las Vegas, with Aston-Reese and Heinen skating on an extra fifth line centered by Radim Zohorna, the lone player left on the taxi squad:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Kasperi Kapanen
Dominik Simon - Jeff Carter - Evan Rodrigues
Brian Boyle - Teddy Blueger - Brock McGinn
Zach Aston-Reese - Radim Zohorna - Danton Heinen
Aston-Reese also took some turns working with one of the penalty-killing units during the special teams portion of practice.
Throughout this season, we've seen players handle returning from the COVID protocol differently depending on factors like whether they were symptomatic and how much they were able to stay active while isolated. Heinen was symptomatic, Aston-Reese was asymptomatic, and it's not clear whether DeSmith experienced symptoms.
"Everybody, when they come off this COVID protocol, they all react differently," Sullivan said. "We have a lot of interaction with each player in there. The player's feedback is a big part of it. When we do insert players into the lineup, we're trying to put them in positions to be successful and make sure they're prepared for it."
Aston-Reese was the only one of the three players who exited protocol to speak following Wednesday's practice. He said he was able to work out while in isolation, and noted that he didn't feel as if he missed too much time or "lost too much" while in protocol compared to when he was in protocol at the start of the season and experienced symptoms. He said that he was "an 8-out-of-10 upset" upon testing positive a second time, and killed time in isolation by playing Super Smash Bros. on his Nintendo Switch and watching the HBO show 'Euphoria.'
"All the pieces are in place, now it's just a matter of everyone buying into their roles and accepting it," he said. "I think we're pretty bought into that as a team, I think everyone knows it, and it's something we talked about. So it's definitely exciting to see what we could put on the ice here in this next stretch."
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• Drew O'Connor was the lone absentee from practice, after being put on long-term injured reserve retroactive to Jan. 15. Sullivan said that O'Connor was being evaluated for an upper-body injury and is currently considered week-to-week. LTIR rules a player out of the lineup for a minimum of 10 games and 24 days. However, assuming the Penguins' forwards stay relatively healthy, it's more likely that O'Connor just gets re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton once cleared.
• The defense pairings remained the same:
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino
Mike Matheson - Chad Ruhwedel
(Mark Friedman rotating)
• The top power-play unit was Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Guentzel
• The second power-play unit was John Marino, Kasperi Kapanen, Evan Rodrigues, Jeff Carter, Jason Zucker
• Two of the Penguins' equipment managers hit big milestones recently, with head equipment manager Jon Taglianetti working his 1,000th game while in Dallas and assistant equipment manager Paul DeFazio working his 1,500th game in the home game just before the trip.
"I was with Pauly in Wilkes," Aston-Reese said. "Anything I needed, he was always a cool guy about it. I know Tags could be a little bit grumpier sometimes (laughs). No, just kidding, just kidding. Tags is a great guy. Those guys make it easy for us. I mean, it's all about feeling comfortable out there. Whether you need like, an extra pad put in -- I know I have some extra pads put in -- there was like no issue asking to get those done and getting your steel changed. I used to get my steel changed like three times in a game, which I know Tags wasn't happy about. But when they reach a milestone like that, just it's so much experience. Just 1,000 games, 1,500 games, that's a lot of years."
