Pittsburgh opts to keep things mostly the same despite their Tuesday loss, as they are 5-2 in their last seven games
Following a 6-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a productive practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, Pa. on Wednesday.
While they worked to tweak some things, much remained the same in terms of the lineup.
Cody Glass - recently promoted to the Penguins' top-six - remained on a line with Evgeni Malkin and Philip Tomasino, who he also skated on a line with during their time together in Nashville. Glass scored his first goal in black and gold against the Avs on Tuesday.
Head coach Mike Sullivan pointed to Glass's versatility, size, and speed as reasons they decided to move him into a larger role within the Penguins' offensive attack.
"Obviously, he has some offensive instincts," Sullivan said. "He's got a pretty solid two-way game. He can skate. He has good size. So, if we choose to play him a handful of shifts last night, for example, against (Nathan) MacKinnon's line... they're a handful. Not only are they skilled, but they're big. Size is an important element of that when you play against guys like that. I think Cody's a guy that has good size, he's got a long reach, he's strong, and he can skate. So, that was one of the reasons why we made that switch after the first period when we did."
He added: "I think what we like about Cody is his versatility. We can play him in the middle, we can play him on the wing... we can move him around the lineup depending on what the needs of the team are."
Here were the full lines and pairings at Wednesday's practice:
In addition, there was a lot of talk about the Penguins' power play. After the 0-for-4 effort against Colorado, they now rank 14th in the league at 21.6 percent - which is still a vast improvement on where they were last season.
As mentioned in the recap piece from the Colorado game, Matt Grzelcyk provided some great insight in Tuesday's post-game on what the power play's tendencies are when it is and isn't working, which mostly boiled down to recognition on zone entries and pace in the attacking zone:
But - as a whole - Sullivan has seen the power play as something that has largely been a positive for the team this season, and he pointed out that the unit's role in their 5-2 win against Toronto on Saturday was probably its best effort of the season so far.
He also mentioned that, perhaps, the biggest thing is that they're not bleeding chances against like they were last season.
"I think they've made a signficant difference," Sullivan said. "What I like about it is that we're scoring goals, and we're not giving up any. Quite honestly, that's the difference. For me, the biggest thing is just in the process and how they're going about it. The players that have been on it have done a good job."
