Bryan Rust ‘week to week,’ Sidney Crosby will not play Tuesday for Penguins
To different degrees, the injury news regarding two-thirds of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ top line was negative Monday.
Coach Mike Sullivan termed the prognosis of wing Bryan Rust as “week-to-week” because of a lower-body injury. And center Sidney Crosby will remain out of game action when the Penguins host the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.
There had been some hope Crosby would be cleared to play by Tuesday after he skated Friday and Saturday. But Crosby’s work Monday at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex was limited to skating along with a pair of other injured teammates and skills and development coach Ty Hennes prior to the scheduled 11 a.m. practice.
Crosby is recovering from surgery on his left wrist.
Rust suffered his injury during the third period of Thursday’s game at the Florida Panthers.
Rust, who is on injured reserve, did not miss any games during last season’s abbreviated 56-game schedule.
Matheson close
Defenseman Mike Matheson joined Crosby and Evgeni Malkin skating earlier Monday morning — but in addition to that workout of almost an hour, Matheson also joined the team for its full practice.
That provides optimism he could be cleared to make his season debut Tuesday.
“We will see how he responds overnight, but he had a strong practice,” Sullivan said. “We are certainly encouraged.”
Matheson, a defenseman, has been bothered by a lower-body injury that has lingered and apparently was aggravated just prior to the start of the regular season. Missing the Dallas game would provide four additional days of recovery because the Penguins’ next scheduled game is Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“That’s the hardest part about it,” Matheson said of the injury, “is one day it feels really good and you think you are there, and then kind of start looking at the schedule what game you can get into, and then maybe, ‘I can get into that one, but then we have a certain amount of days after that one and maybe it makes more sense to wait another one.’
“And so it’s tough to stay patient. But that’s the most important thing — you don’t want to come back too early and set yourself back even further when you could have just waited one more day and be good to go.”
Friedman leaves practice
Reserve defenseman Mark Friedman left Monday’s practice because of a lower-body injury for which he was still being evaluated while Sullivan was briefing media about 45 minutes after the session ended.
“We don’t anticipate it being serious,” Sullivan said of Friedman’s ailment.
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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