CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- If you blinked, you'd have missed Kris Letang's cameo appearance when he briefly poked his head into the Penguins' locker room. It was the only glimpse the media got of the defenseman on Saturday.
Letang did not practice with his teammates at the Lemieux Sports Complex with what Mike Sullivan said was a maintenance day, but the coach did confirm that Letang will travel with the team and will almost certainly play in Sunday's afternoon's Game 3 in Philadelphia.
Letang was rested a day after absorbing a big, but questionable, hit from Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux in the second period of the Flyers' 5-1 win Friday night in Game 2 that evened the best-of-seven series:
Sullivan again had no comment on the play -- on which no penalty was called on the ice -- or the league's decision Saturday to not discipline Giroux. Giroux had been suspended once before, one game for a hit to the head of New Jersey's Dainius Zubrus in a May 6, 2012, playoff game.
While the Penguins would have liked to see sort of supplementary discipline from the the league, they have no choice but to move on to the pivotal Game 3 at the Wells Fargo Center.
"Nothing you can really do," Sidney Crosby said through a wry smile:
Friday's game was by far the more physical of the two games between the in-state rivals and Jamie Oleksiak said you can expect even more in what's now become a best-of-five.
"It’s the playoffs, it’s a tight series, 1-1, it’s a best-of-five series," he said. "Things get a little more contentious in general. We need a big game here, two big games in Philly. It’s not carryover as much as this is what the situation is right now."
Oleksiak, the Penguins' most physical force on the blue line, did not absolve Giroux but said he understands that some things are unavoidable.
"I can’t put myself in his shoes," Oleksiak said. "If he says that, then ... it’s hard to tell if that was intentional or not. There's nothing you can really do about it. It happened. You’ve got to play it hard between the whistles and things do happen fast. It’s playoff hockey."
Letang did return later in the second period of Friday's game after sustaining what appeared to be a cut to the left hand and passing the league's concussion protocol. The 30-year-old has had at least three known concussions in his 12-year-career, the last of which occurred late in the 2015 regular season.
Last spring Letang went out of the lineup with a neck injury that required surgery and sidelined him for the Penguins' successful Stanley Cup title defense.
