CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins again took to the ice without Derick Brassard, bugged for the past few days with a lower-body injury, this time for their Monday practice at the Lemieux Sports Complex. It isn't clear when he might be back, as Mike Sullivan allowed after the session that Brassard was kept off the ice entirely.
Kris Letang left this 50-minute practice about 10 minutes early, and he'll be considered a game-time decision Tuesday before facing the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena, Sullivan said. Sullivan called Letang's exit "precautionary," acknowledging that it was the effect of a lower-body injury that forced Letang out of the game briefly Saturday night in Vancouver.
There were no other injury updates.
Brassard was hurt last Thursday night, late in the 9-1 victory against Calgary, and didn't play Saturday in Vancouver. He'd also been given what Sullivan called a "maintenance day" just before the game in Calgary.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• The lines and pairings used in practice strongly suggested that Dominik Simon will bump up to the top line to replace Brassard, as he did -- quite well -- in Vancouver:
Guentzel-Crosby-Simon
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Sheahan-Cullen-Hornqvist
Rust-Grant-Sprong
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Oleksiak
Johnson-Ruhwedel
(Riikola)
If those forward lines hold -- and Sullivan, as ever, reminded that they're "in pencil and not pen" -- Simon would get another chance to skate alongside Sidney Crosby, a combination that both the coach and the captain himself have liked.
Simon, not surprisingly, wouldn't mind, either.
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