The Penguins on Thursday expanded their informal group skates from six players to 12 players after the NHL began permitting 12-player skates this week.
A video distributed by the Penguins to the media shows the larger group, which was led by skills coach Ty Hennes and goaltending coach Mike Buckley.
With more players, some of the drills are starting to look more like those that occur in regular practices:
Both Matt Murray and Tristan Jarry worked with the group after Jarry resumed skating this week.
When I spoke with Hennes earlier in the week, I asked if he anticipated any challenges moving from six players to 12.
"Six players, it's pretty easy to social distance," Hennes said. "Going to 12 players, we can still continue to have the same structure to the on-ice and the off-ice in the gym. We're in stations, we're in pods. When we have groups of six, we would have six stations, one player would be working at each station. One would be in the far end, one would be at the blue line, another at the far blue line, and then the same on the opposite side.
"Now we can pretty much do that with 10 stations. It's 12 players, 10 skaters and two goalies. Goalies are the safest from each other because they're 200 feet away."
Here are some of the players who we know are back in town:
Forwards:
Jake Guentzel
Sidney Crosby
Conor Sheary
Evgeni Malkin
Zach Aston-Reese
Bryan Rust
Jared McCann
Brandon Tanev
Anthony Angello
Defensemen:
Kris Letang
Brian Dumoulin
Jack Johnson
John Marino
Chad Ruhwedel
Zach Trotman
Goaltenders:
Matt Murray
Tristan Jarry
Casey DeSmith
Alex D’Orio
Emil Larmi
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