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Senators Fire D.J. Smith, Name Jacques Martin Interim Head Coach

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The Ottawa Senators relieved head coach D.J. Smith of his duties Monday, per a team announcement. Jacques Martin will take over as the team’s interim head coach, while longtime Senators winger Daniel Alfredsson will step into an assistant coaching role on Martin’s staff. Assistant coach Davis Payne was also relieved of his duties.

The news is far from unexpected after an 11-15-0 start to the season put Ottawa on track to miss the playoffs for the seventh straight season. After beating the division rival Red Wings 5-1 on December 9, the Senators dropped four consecutive games, all in regulation, and allowed at least four goals in all those losses.

While the team has received below-average goaltending from their tandem of Joonas Korpisalo and Anton Forsberg, their possession numbers don’t suggest they should be in the playoff picture, either. The team has controlled under 50% of Corsi events, scoring chances, and high-danger chances at five-on-five – disappointing metrics for a team with a supposedly reformed top-six forward group and top-six defense core set to take them to the postseason.

However, those at the top of the lineup aren’t to blame for the Senators’ struggles. Perhaps no team in the league has had a more prominent dichotomy between the performance of their stars and the performance of their depth players this season than the Senators, who have received spectacular two-way play from players like Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Thomas Chabot (when healthy), Joshua Norris, Jake Sanderson, and Artem Zub. However, nearly all their depth skaters have been significant liabilities, and their overall defensive structure has been prone to visible, unforgivable lapses in their own zone.

So ends a disappointing tenure for Smith, who ends his first NHL head-coaching role after parts of five seasons and 317 games behind the Ottawa bench. That made him one of the longest-tenured bench bosses in the league before today’s news.

Ottawa brought on Smith in 2019 after parting ways with Guy Boucher just two seasons after the latter led them to double overtime in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference Final against the eventual Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. While some of his tenure was during a designed rebuild, Smith’s record isn’t pretty – 131-154-32, or a .464 points percentage, never guiding the Senators to a division finish higher than sixth place. Despite investing in acquiring talent over the past few summers, the team hasn’t shown any signs of life of becoming a playoff contender under Smith.

The 46-year-old had spent four seasons as an assistant coach for the Maple Leafs before taking the job in Ottawa. It seems likely an assistant role is what’s next for Smith if he wants to stay behind an NHL bench. He becomes the fourth head coach to be fired in-season, joining the Blues’ Craig Berube, the Wild’s Dean Evason, and the Oilers’ Jay Woodcroft.

Payne, 53, joined the Senators’ bench as an assistant along with Smith in 2019. Briefly the head coach of the Blues in the early 2010s, Payne lifted the Stanley Cup in 2014 while serving as an assistant with the Kings.

It’s both nostalgic and peculiar to see the Senators pivot back to Martin behind the bench, who previously served as their head coach from 1996 to 2004 and remains the franchise’s all-time leader in games coached. The 71-year-old last served behind an NHL bench in 2020-21 as an assistant with the Rangers and was last a head coach over a decade ago with the Canadiens in 2011-12. He rejoined the Senators organization earlier this month in a senior advisor role after holding the same position with the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs since 2022.

When Martin was behind the bench last in Ottawa, its leading scorer was a 25-year-old Marián Hossa. Just behind him was Alfredsson, the franchise’s all-time leader in points, who will now work closely with his longtime bench boss to help quickly turn their season around.

The Senators are getting significant experience in Martin, who’s coached nearly 1,300 NHL games for the Senators, Canadiens, Blues, and Panthers. Throughout his nine seasons in Ottawa, Martin only missed the playoffs once in his first year behind the bench, guiding them to their first sustained period of success after they were brought into the league in the 1992-93 season.

This is the 51-year-old Alfredsson’s first chance to show what he can do behind an NHL bench. The team hired Alfredsson earlier this season as a development coach after Michael Andlauer assumed ownership of the team, marking his first time being employed by the Senators since serving as an advisor between 2015 and 2017. Ottawa’s captain from 1999 to 2013 remains their all-time leader in goals (426), assists (682) and points (1,108).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Snapshots: Kuznetsov, Suter, Boudreau, Richards, Clarke

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Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov was a late scratch for tonight’s game against Philadelphia with the team announcing (Twitter link) that it was due to illness.  It has not been a good year for the 31-year-old who has been limited to just five goals and six assists in 22 games while even being a healthy scratch earlier this month.  Kuznetsov has one more year left after this one with a $7.8MM AAV and if Washington looks to shake things up, it wouldn’t be surprising to see his name land in the rumor mill again after a trade request came to light over the summer.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Prior to their game tonight versus Florida, the Canucks announced (Twitter link) that they’ve activated center Pius Suter from injured reserve. The 27-year-old has missed the last month due to a lower-body injury.  Suter was off to a slow start to his first season with Vancouver as he has been limited to four goals in his first 15 games.  Having sent back Linus Karlsson recently, they didn’t need to make another move to open up a spot for Suter’s activation.
  • It’s possible that we could see Bruce Boudreau back behind a bench in the near future. Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek reports (Twitter link) that the veteran bench boss is in the mix to coach Canada’s entry into the upcoming Spengler Cup, which gets underway on December 26th.  The 68-year-old is currently an advisor for OHL Niagara.
  • The Blues have added long-time NHL center Brad Richards as a power play consultant, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman relays in his latest 32 Thoughts column. Richards put up 377 points with the man advantage during his 15-year NHL career, putting him in a tie for 76th in NHL history in that department.  Louis enters play tonight with a power play success rate of just 8.4%, putting them 31st league-wide ahead of only Washington.
  • With Vladislav Gavrikov now out for a little while, some wondered if this could be the opportunity for top prospect Brandt Clarke to be recalled from AHL Ontario. However, Zach Dooley of LA Kings Insider notes that promoting him would give them four right-shot defenders and the Kings don’t want to put one of them in a spot of playing on their off-side.  Clarke is off to a very strong start with the Reign, putting up 25 points in his first 24 career AHL appearances.

St. Louis Blues Fire Craig Berube

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The St. Louis Blues have made a surprising coaching change. The team has announced that head coach Craig Berube has been relieved of his duties. In addition, Drew Bannister, the head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds, has been named the interim bench boss in St. Louis.

A veteran of over 1,000 games as a player, Berube is best known for the magical run he led the Blues on after taking over in a mid-season coaching change in 2018-19. With the Blues struggling to find any sort of success under Mike Yeo, general manager Doug Armstrong made a coaching change and placed control over the team in Berube’s hands.

That decision paid almost immediate dividends. The Blues went on a scorching-hot run to close out the regular season and then won their franchise’s first Stanley Cup in dramatic fashion: a dominant game-seven road victory against a strong Boston Bruins team.

Berube’s leadership led the Blues to the Stanley Cup championship that had eluded them for so long. For that, he’ll always be remembered as a legend in St. Louis.

That being said, since that Stanley Cup run the Blues have been on an undeniable decline. They lost in the first round in consecutive years following the championship and then rebounded in 2021-22, winning one playoff series. But a 37-38-7 record last season exposed some serious cracks in the Blues’ foundation, and a middling 13-14-1 start to this campaign was the final nail in the coffin for Berube.

It’s fair to question whether the decline of the Blues is ultimately down to Berube’s coaching, or personnel decisions made by the front office. On one hand, the Blues have a team with some genuinely talented players, they spend to the salary cap, and should probably be performing a little bit better than they are right now just assessing things on paper.

But on the other hand, there have been some definite missteps from the front office. First and foremost, the team has seemingly not recovered from captain Alex Pietrangelo’s decision to leave and sign with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Additionally, players such as Torey Krug, Nick Leddy, Marco Scandella, Kasperi Kapanen, Jakub Vrána are all not providing surplus value for their cap hits, which has clogged up the team’s financial flexibility to make changes. The large number of players with some form of no-trade protection in their contracts has also cost the team the ability to make meaningful changes to its roster.

That’s not to say all the moves since the Stanley Cup win have not paid off, the Pavel Buchnevich trade in particular was absolutely stellar, but overall there have been quite a few missteps in terms of player recruitment and evaluation since the team’s championship win.

So with a squad clearly in need of a change, but without the means to make any significant player moves, the Blues found themselves in a similar predicament to the Edmonton Oilers from earlier this season. Like in Edmonton, it’s unclear how much blame for their current struggles truly lies in the hands of the head coach. But also like in Edmonton, the Blues didn’t have many levers to pull – outside of a coaching change – to try to catalyze team-wide improvement.

The Oilers have responded extremely positively to their coaching change, and have now won eight straight games. The Blues are likely hoping this move produces similar results, and it’s that desperate need for improvement that has led to St. Louis dispatching a figure who accomplished so much for their franchise. They’ve even gone a similar route in terms of replacement to the Oilers. Edmonton hired an AHL head coach from outside of its organization to replace the coach they fired, while the Blues have also opted for an AHL coach, only this one comes from their own AHL affiliate.

Bannister, 49, began his coaching career in the United Kingdom, serving as a player-coach for the Hull Stingrays and Braehead Clan. He got his first chance as a full-time head coach with the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack, reaching the playoffs in each of his three seasons there. He was then hired to his old OHL stomping grounds to be the head coach of the Soo Greyhounds, the junior team he won two OHL titles and a Memorial Cup with as a player. He had a strong tenure with the Greyhounds, leading them to the OHL Finals in 2017-18.

After losing in the OHL Final, Bannister became the head coach of the San Antonio Rampage in the AHL, beginning his AHL coaching career. He did not have a huge amount of success in San Antonio, though things would change after the Blues’ AHL affiliation shifted to Springfield. In his first season in Massachusetts, Bannister coached the Thunderbirds to the Calder Cup Final.

A few key player departures dropped the team to more of a middle-of-the-pack squad last season, but this year Bannister’s Thunderbirds are firmly in the playoff picture with a 12-8-2 record. Bannister has delivered numerous NHL players to St. Louis, such as Jordan Kyrou, Niko Mikkola, Ville Husso, and Jake Walman, to name a few. Now, he’ll be tasked with delivering something different to the Blues: NHL victories.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Penguins Notes: Sullivan, Rust, Eller, Acciari

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With the Penguins struggling through the first two months of the season, some have wondered if a coaching change could be on the horizon.  Speaking with reporters today including Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, GM Kyle Dubas tried to downplay the idea that one could be coming, giving head coach Mike Sullivan a vote of confidence:

Being with him every day and not only seeing his attention to detail on the systems but his attention to detail with the players and coaching them individually and personally, I think we’re very fortunate to have Mike. Do I think that he’s the right person for this job now and far to the future? I absolutely do. It’s on me to help support the coaching staff as best I can to help us get going in the right direction.

Sullivan is in his ninth season behind the Penguins bench with the team posting a .621 points percentage in that stretch, certainly in the upper echelon.  However, they enter play tonight sitting seventh in the Metropolitan Division with a record of 11-12-3, putting them six points out of a playoff spot already.

More from Pittsburgh:

  • Rorabaugh also relayed some injury updates in a separate column. Winger Bryan Rust is listed as week-to-week with an undisclosed injury.  He last played on Wednesday, leaving that game early.  The 31-year-old has been a go-to piece for the Penguins through the first couple of months, notching 10 goals and 10 assists in 22 games, good for fourth on the team in scoring.  With Rickard Rakell currently on LTIR (though eligible to return this weekend), Pittsburgh’s depth on the right wing is certainly going to be tested.
  • Center Lars Eller didn’t take part in practice today due to an illness but Sullivan indicated that the veteran is expected to be available for Tuesday’s game against Arizona. The 34-year-old is in his first season with Pittsburgh after signing a two-year, $4.9MM contract early in free agency.  Eller has three goals and five assists in 26 games so far while logging a little under 15 minutes a night.
  • Meanwhile, fellow middleman Noel Acciari took to the ice before practice as he works his way back from a lower-body injury. The veteran has been out for a little more than a week with the issue and is currently on injured reserve but will be eligible to be activated as soon as he’s cleared to return.  Acciari has three points and 44 hits in 22 games so far this season.

Charlie McAvoy Out Day-To-Day

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Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic is reporting that Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury. While very little information is available with regards to the injury, Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery did tell the media that McAvoy does not have a head injury.

McAvoy was unable to finish the Bruins’ game last night against the Buffalo Sabres after he suffered an injury just over a minute into the third period of their 3-1 loss. Very few details were available after the game other than that he had an upper-body injury, and the club didn’t know the extent of it.

McAvoy is the Bruins defensive leader in many statistical categories and would create a massive hole if he is sidelined for any length of time. The Bruins are already without the services of defenseman Derek Forbort, who was placed on LTIR yesterday, and would likely have to rely on someone like Ian Mitchell to enter the lineup in McAvoy’s absence.

McAvoy has been nearly a point-a-game player this season with three goals and 14 assists in 21 games thus far while averaging over 24 minutes a night of ice time. His average ice time is almost a minute higher than his career average and it appears that it may be wearing on the 25-year-old. McAvoy has been a minus player in nine of his last 10 games and is a combined -11 during that time.

Now plus/minus doesn’t tell the whole story, but it is certainly an alarming indicator that McAvoy is slumping. In those ten games, McAvoy does have six assists, but after starting the season with 11 points in 11 games, he has certainly slowed down in recent weeks.

Cale Makar Will Not Play Tonight

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Peter Baugh of The Athletic is reporting that Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar will miss tonight’s game against the Los Angeles Kings with a lower-body injury. Baugh relayed the news from Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar who said that Makar is out for tonight and that was all he knew for now.

Makar is currently one of the frontrunners for the Norris Trophy as his seven goals and 27 assists in 23 games have him tied for fourth in NHL scoring with Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes. He has finished in the top-3 in Norris Trophy voting in each of the past three seasons and is making a strong case for it to be four years in a row. He won the award back in 2022 and was also the Conn Smythe Trophy winner in the same year.

Makar left the Avalanche game last night against the Anaheim Ducks just before the end of regulation. He was unavailable during the overtime period and the shootout, which the Avalanche eventually lost.

If he is out for any length of time it would be a big blow to a Colorado club that currently sits atop the Central Division with a 15-6-2 record. They were on a hot streak having won seven of eight prior games to dropping their last two to the Ducks and Arizona Coyotes.

With Makar sidelined, it appears that rookie Sam Malinski will dress in his second career NHL game. The 25-year-old signed as an undrafted free agent this past March after playing four years at Cornell University. In 17 AHL games this season with the Colorado Eagles, Malinski has three goals and six assists.

Minnesota Wild Fire Dean Evason, Name John Hynes Head Coach

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The Wild have relieved head coach Dean Evason and assistant coach Bob Woods of their duties effective immediately, the team said in a statement Monday evening. Two hours later, they named former Devils and Predators bench boss John Hynes as their new head coach.

Wild GM Bill Guerin gave the following comment on the decision to part with Evason:

Dean did an excellent job during his tenure with the Minnesota Wild, especially as Head Coach of our team. I am very thankful for his hard work and dedication to our organization. I would also like to thank Bob for his hard work during his time as an Assistant Coach with the Wild. I wish Dean, Bob and their families all the best in the future.

Evason had been a member of the Wild organization since he was brought on as an assistant in 2018, while Woods joined the Wild bench one season prior. The 59-year-old Evason began his coaching career with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen as an assistant in 1998-99 after finishing out his playing career in Germany, working his way up the junior hockey ranks over the next handful of seasons. His first NHL job came courtesy of an assistant role with the Capitals immediately after the 2004-05 lockout, coaching Alex Ovechkin in his first seven NHL seasons.

After departing Washington in 2012, Evason spent the next several seasons working in the Predators organization as the head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals. There, he helped guide more than a few future NHL stalwarts – namely Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis, Filip Forsberg, Calle Järnkrok, Viktor Arvidsson, and Kevin Fiala, among many others. After joining the Wild, he earned a promotion to head coach within two seasons when the Wild fired Bruce Boudreau late in the 2019-20 campaign.

Just a couple of years later, Evason had coached the Wild to their best season in franchise history. The 2021-22 campaign saw the Wild break the 50-win mark for the first time since their inception in 2000, nearly sitting atop the Central Division with 113 points. That was in an extremely tough group with the 119-point Stanley Cup champion Avalanche and the 109-point Blues, whom the Wild bowed out to in the first round of the playoffs. The Wild remain without a playoff series victory since the 2015 postseason and have not advanced to a Conference Final since the 2002-03 season.

So with the Wild now far out of the playoff picture with a 5-10-4 record, sitting bottom five in the league in both goals for and against, a change was necessary and expected. Injuries and goaltending have certainly played a factor in their poor play – captain Jared Spurgeon missed the first 13 games of the season, and Filip Gustavsson’s and Marc-André Fleury’s combined .878 SV% is near the bottom of the league.

They’ve likely been unlucky, too. The Wild have controlled a slim majority of scoring chances and a strong majority of high-danger chances during 5-on-5 play, a common theme for an organization that’s usually one of the more defensively stout in the league. But the culture around the team is evidently turning sour quickly, Kirill Kaprizov is on pace for a career-low 26 goals and has a team-worst -10 rating, and most of their depth defensemen have been significant liabilities. This roster is not all that different from the one that’s finished top-three in the Central Division for three straight seasons, and it’s certainly one that still has playoff aspirations.

Minnesota has not won since November 7 against the Islanders and is winless in seven straight.

Woods, who had worked on the Capitals’ bench with Evason briefly as an assistant in the early 2010s, is now on the open market after more than six seasons with the Wild. It’s unclear whether the Wild will opt to fill his vacancy.

Hynes, who was let go by the Predators after last season, is technically in the final season of his contract with Nashville. That means the Predators had to grant permission to their divisional rival to speak to their former head coach and that Hynes will be paid by both Minnesota and Nashville this season.

Now behind the bench of his third NHL franchise, he faces an uphill climb to get Minnesota back in the playoff picture. Hynes will suit up behind an NHL bench for a ninth consecutive season, as he was fired by the Devils and hired by Nashville midway through the 2019-20 campaign.

The Wild will certainly get a boost in the standings once Fleury and Gustavsson improve their play between the pipes, a likely scenario given their stellar performance last season. However, they again have the misfortune of being in quite a competitive division. The Avalanche and Stars occupy first and second place as expected powerhouses, while the Blues, Predators and Coyotes all sit at or above the .500 mark and, especially in Nashville’s case, have posted decent underlying numbers.

Hynes’ main job is simply to restore confidence in his group. This roster has the ability to play better – especially Kaprizov, who, despite the okay point production, has looked like a complete non-factor on some nights. The team also hopes a significant change behind the bench can boost their league-worst penalty kill, which is operating at just 66.7%. Penalty killing was an area of strength for Nashville last season, who finished tied for fourth in the NHL with an 82.6% success rate.

The Wild will be on the hook for the remainder of Evason’s contract, which runs through 2024-25 at just under $2MM per season.

The Athletic’s Michael Russo was the first to report the Hynes hire.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Afternoon Notes: Bowness, Vasilevskiy, Perry

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The Winnipeg Jets have announced that head coach Rick Bowness has returned to the team after taking a leave of absence to be with his wife following a medical emergency. Bowness left the team a month ago and associate coach Scott Arniel served as interim head coach while Bowness was with his family.

Bowness will officially re-join the team and serve as head coach today when the Jets take on the Florida Panthers. Winnipeg surprisingly sits in third place in the Central Division with an 11-5-2 record, they trail division leaders the Dallas Stars by just two points.

Bowness met up with the Jets in Sunrise, Florida today and the team posted a video of the 68-year-old circling the clubs dressing room and greeting the players. The Jets rallied after a slow start to the season and managed to go 9-2-2 in Bowness’s absence. With their head coach now back in the fold, the Jets appear poised to go on a run as one of the feel-good stories in the early part of the NHL season.

In other afternoon notes:

  • Tampa Bay Times writer Eduardo A. Encina is reporting that Tampa Bay Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy will make his season debut today when the team takes on the Carolina Hurricanes. Vasilevskiy was the first goalie off the ice at the morning skate today signalling that he will make his return from back surgery. The 2019 Vezina Trophy winner has yet to dress this season and should provide a jolt to a team that has been treading water early in the year. Tampa Bay is 9-6-5 which is good enough for third in the Atlantic Division and impressive for a team that had to play a quarter of the season without one of the best goaltenders in the world.
  • Chicago Sun-Times writer Ben Pope tweeted today that Chicago Blackhawks forward Corey Perry will not play again today and that no further updates have been given. Perry missed practice after being a healthy scratch on Wednesday for what was deemed an ‘organizational decision.’ It appears he will remain a healthy scratch for the time being as the Blackhawks take on the Toronto Maple Leafs this afternoon. Perry has four goals and five assists in 16 games this season and has registered a -6.

Injury Notes: Barkov, Vasilevskiy, McDonagh

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Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic is reporting that Florida Panthers star center Aleksander Barkov will not dress tonight for the Panthers matchup with the Boston Bruins. It will be the second game in a row that the 28-year-old has missed after suffering a knee injury in Friday night’s win over the Anaheim Ducks. Knee injuries can be tricky, and it appears that the Panthers are opting to proceed cautiously with Barkov’s return to the line-up.

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice did tell Florida play-by-play broadcaster Doug Plagens that Barkov could return as early as Friday against the Winnipeg Jets. If he can return, Barkov and the Panthers will have dodged a major injury scare as the collision that sidelined Barkov could have been much worse. Barkov currently sits second on the Panthers in scoring with six goals and 11 assists in 16 games.

In other injury notes:

  • Tampa Bay Times writer Eduardo A. Encina is reporting that Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper told reporters today that there is a very good chance that star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy will play on the team’s upcoming road trip. Vasilevskiy took part in Tampa Bay’s morning skate today but still is not ready to play. The Lighting will open their three-game road trip this Friday in Carolina and then get a few days off before they play a back-to-back in Colorado and then Arizona next Monday and Tuesday. Given that timeline, it is possible that the 2019 Vezina Trophy winner will make his season debut in the next week.
  • Nashville Predators reporter Michael Gallagher tweeted that Predators defenseman Ryan McDonagh skated with Roman Josi at practice this morning and is expected to return to game action this evening against the Calgary Flames. McDonagh has been out of action with a lower-body injury since November 2nd, missing the Predators last seven games. While he doesn’t offer much offensively, Nashville’s goaltenders badly missed the veteran. McDonagh is still a terrific penalty killer and does a very good job limiting his opponent’s offensive opportunities. Nashville gave up 20 goals in a four-game losing streak in McDonagh’s absence but has rallied off two straight wins since. They currently sit sixth in the Central Division with a 7-10 record.

Penguins Notes: Rust, Nieto, Samorukov

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Post-Gazette Sports reporter Matt Vensel tweeted some updates this morning from Pittsburgh Penguins practice. Vensel said that Penguins forward Bryan Rust was not in attendance as he awaits results from an MRI yesterday. Rust suffered a lower-body injury recently and it is unclear what the injury is or how long he could be sidelined for. Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters that Rust will not play tonight and is out day-to-day.

The Penguins have already lost fellow right-wing option Rickard Rakell and if Rust is ruled out long-term it will create a massive void in the Penguins top-6 as well as their penalty kill. Rust has been the Penguins’ most consistent winger this year with 16 points in 17 games on top of his inspired penalty killing.

If Rust is absent long-term the Penguins could find themselves in a big hole as they are in the middle of a tough stretch of games and take on the New York Rangers tonight.

In other Penguins notes:

  • Vensel also reported that Penguins forward Matt Nieto was in attendance at practice today which is typically a good sign for a player’s availability on a game day. This was confirmed by Sullivan who said that Nieto is available to play but will be a game-time decision. Nieto took a maintenance day yesterday and did not skate with the team. The 31-year-old has struggled to start the season with just a goal and an assist in his first 17 games of the season. He has been a piece of the Penguins fourth line that has provided the team with almost no offence this season but has been a very effective penalty killer when called upon. It’s fair to wonder if Nieto is dealing with a nagging issue as he has been unable to come close to replicating his play from last season when he had 12 goals and 12 assists in 81 games.
  • Vensel tweeted that freshly signed defenseman Dmitri Samorukov attended Penguins practice today and has been added to their active roster. The 24-year-old signed a one-year two-way contract yesterday that will pay him $775K at the NHL level for the 2023-24 season. Vensel followed up his original tweet by adding that Samorukov stayed after the Penguins practice for some extra work with the coaches which is generally an indication that he will not play tonight. Samorukov does have three games of NHL experience and has yet to score a point.

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