Penguins forward Colton Sceviour presses on after a disjointed week

Last week didn’t start ideally for Pittsburgh Penguins fourth-line forward Colton Sceviour as he still was stuck on the NHL’s list of absences related to covid-19 protocol after landing on it the previous weekend.

Then he had a pretty awful case of the Mondays when he was placed on waivers. After clearing waivers by Tuesday, he was also removed from the NHL’s covid-19 protocol list.

That was followed by a handful of paper transactions that shuffled him between the NHL roster and taxi squad as it temporarily removed some of his $1.2 salary cap hit off the payroll.

By Thursday, he got off to a good start for the weekend when he recorded the primary assist on forward Anthony Angello’s goal during a 5-2 road win against the Buffalo Sabres.

“It’s been wild and unpredictable for sure,” Sceviour said of his topsy-turvy week. “But it’s part of the game. It’s part of the business. You control what you can control. I just focus on when I get an opportunity to be out there to help the team win.”

“That’s not an easy thing for a player,” coach Mike Sullivan said via video conference. “That’s the hard part of this business. As a player, all you can control that which is in your control. That’s his approach that he brings to the game every day. Colton is a good pro. He’s been around the game a long time. He understands the business. He knows how it works. He’s responded extremely well. He’s a positive guy. He’s working extremely hard.”

A 31-year-old veteran in his 10th NHL season, Sceviour’s season got off to something of a disjointed start when he missed the first day of training camp to attend to his wife as she gave birth. After scoring two goals within the first four games of the season, he went nearly two months before recording his next point on Angello’s goal. He also served as a healthy scratch for six games during that span.

“It’s been a little more up and down, obviously, than you would have hoped,” Sceviour said. “You obviously want to come into a new team and find that role and help the team every night. Unfortunately, it didn’t really happen early on there. It’s been better lately trying to find that role and finding ways to help the team. That’s what we’re working towards and hoping to keep building off of that.”

Marino still sidelined

Defenseman John Marino remained sidelined for Saturday’s road game against the Sabres after missing Thursday’s contest because of an undisclosed injury.

Prior to Thursday, Marino had been the Penguins’ lone defenseman who had not missed a game this season.

Two months into the season, the Penguins already have used 12 defensemen, primarily because of injuries. The franchise “record” of 15 was established in 2000-01 and matched in 2002-03.

“Depth is an important aspect of trying to become a successful team and continuing to find ways to be competitive when players go down with injuries,” Sullivan said. “Fortunately, we feel as though we’ve got some depth at that position. And we’ve utilized all different types of players, whether it’s veteran guys like (Yannick Weber) that we signed out of necessity to try to put a complement of defensive depth together. Or a young player like P.O Joseph that comes us and contributes to help us win as well. We like we have some depth at that position. These guys that have stepped in have done a real good job for us.”

Maniscalco recalled

Defenseman Josh Maniscalco was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL) and assigned to the taxi squad. A first-year professional, Maniscalco has no points in two AHL games this season.