Injured Penguins forward Teddy Blueger resumes practicing
With the benefit of three days between games, the Penguins utilized Tuesday’s practice in Cranberry to boost individual skills.
So no formal line rushes or usage of the special teams units. Also, no contact.
That allowed injured forward Teddy Blueger to practice with his teammates for the first since he suffered a broken jaw roughly a month ago.
Skating in a white jersey to signal no contact, as well as a protective shield over his face, Blueger was a full participant in the specialized practice session.
Blueger was injured during a 3-2 home shootout win against the Winnipeg Jets when he was hit in the head by the left shoulder of Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon.
Following surgery on the injury, the team announced his time frame for recovery and return would be six to eight weeks.
That estimate remains in place.
“His status hasn’t changed,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s still going through the process. He skated with the team today because the design of the practice was built around more skill development and team-specific stuff like power-play skills or penalty-kill skills, things of that nature. So we knew it wasn’t a lot of contact in the practice. That gave him the opportunity to participate throughout the course of the whole practice. We’ll see how that goes moving forward, but his status hasn’t changed.”
Blueger’s regular linemate, Zach Aston-Reese, did not participate in practice because of what as termed as a “maintenance day.”
Friedman to get rare playing time
On Monday, the Penguins assigned forwards Drew O’Connor, Radim Zohorna and defenseman Mark Friedman to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL).
In all three cases, the motivation for the transactions was to get them some playing time.
All three were in the lineup for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Tuesday in a 3-1 road win against the Hershey Bears. They are scheduled to face the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at home on Wednesday.
Before Tuesday, O’Connor had not played since Jan. 15 after reportedly suffering a collapsed lung. Meanwhile, Zohorna has been a healthy scratch the past four games at the NHL level but has appeared in 13 AHL games this season.
As for Friedman, he hasn’t played much at all over the past three months and was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning assignment.
Such an assignment cannot last more than 14 days. Additionally, Friedman still counts toward the NHL club’s roster limit of 23 players as well as the salary cap.
A conditioning assignment does not require Friedman being exposed to waivers. As a right-handed defenseman, he very well could be claimed were the Penguins to waive him — as required by the NHL’s rules for veterans with his service time — before assigning him to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton under typical circumstances.
As a result, Friedman has been a healthy scratch for 38 of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ past 39 games, including the past 18.
“(Friedman) has done a really good job,” Sullivan said. “He’s been very professional in his approach. He’s worked extremely hard to keep himself ready. It’s important that these guys get in games. It’s hard to simulate game action. So that’s the motivation to get him some games so that when he does get called upon to be put in the lineup here, he has a better chance to be successful.
“As far as how he’s handled the circumstances at this point, I think (Friedman) has done a terrific job. It’s not an easy circumstance for a player. These guys, they’re competitive guys. They want to be in the lineup every night. It’s not easy when they’re not. We try to communicate as best we can as a coaching staff with all of our players on the decisions that we make and why. Our hope is that our players will be respectful of that. (Friedman) certainly has.
“He’s just controlled what he can in order to keep himself ready. One of the motivations for the decisions in getting these guys to Wilkes-Barre is to get them in games. That’s an important aspect.”
All three players can be recalled in advance of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ next game, a home contest against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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