The Pittsburgh Penguins [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/] held practice Monday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, Pa., and there was a welcome sight. Penguins GM and POHO Kyle Dubas traded a 2027 fourth-round pick to Nashville for Philip Tomasino - and it's paying dividends for Pittsburgh so far. Forward Philip Tomasino - who missed Saturday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/latest-news/bunting-plays-hero-against-former-team-penguins-beat-leafs-5-2] with an upper-body injury - was practicing in a white non-contact jersey. Head coach Mike Sullivan classified Tomasino as "day-to-day", and he said they will see how he responds and go from there. "He's just fit in," Sullivan said. "I think the fact that he hasn't had to step away from the team or from the ice, for that matter, for any length of time is encouraging because we'd like to re-engage him sooner than later." In five games with the Penguins since being traded from Nashville [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/latest-news/penguins-acquire-former-first-round-pick-from-nashville], Tomasino has three goals and four points. Although the Penguins don't necessarily have any glaring options to replace his recent production, they have been putting Cody Glass in his place to flank Evgeni Malkin from the right on the second line. As such, the lines and pairings at practice were the same as the ones used in Saturday's 5-2 win against Toronto [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/latest-news/bunting-plays-hero-against-former-team-penguins-beat-leafs-5-2]: One of the several noteworthy takeaways from Saturday's game [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/latest-news/bunting-plays-hero-against-former-team-penguins-beat-leafs-5-2] was how the Penguins split up their power play units. Instead of having a true no. 1 and no. 2 unit, they divided the "big guns" evenly among units, which ended up paying dividends for them. They used the same units again in Monday's practice: - PP1: Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell, Kevin Hayes, Matt Grzelcyk, Kris Letang - PP2: Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Michael Bunting, Cody Glass, Erik Karlsson Power play coach David Quinn even scolded the unit midway through a drill: The power play - now ranked 13th in the league at 22.7 percent [https://www.statspros.com/nhl-team-power-play-percentage-leaders/] - is something that has helped propel the Penguins' recent winning stretch. The team has scored nine power play goals in its last nine games, including multiple power-play goals in two of those games. Although there is still room to climb percentage-wise, it's a vast improvement over the unit finding itself in the basement last season. Dating back to the start of last season, this is the first time they've truly split the two units into two even units, and - although a bit unconventional - it could end up helping them in the long run. "We're just changing it up and seeing new looks, and sometimes, good things can happen from that," Bunting said. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjEwNjYwNDIwMDI3OTUwOTI5/thnpitbanner.png]
