Penguins Top Defenseman Out Week-To-Week

The Pittsburgh Penguins hit the ice for practice on Monday without one of their top defensemen – and it appears they may be missing him for a while.

Marcus Pettersson – injured at the end of the first period on Saturday in the Penguins’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators after an awkward collision on the boards – is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury, per head coach Mike Sullivan.

“He’s a tough guy to replace on our group of ‘D’ back there,” Sullivan said. “He’s a stablizing defenseman no matter what pair we put him with. He just has a real conscientious game on both sides of the puck. He helps us. So, we’re just going to provide opportunities for others to step in and fill the role.”

Sullivan added that they do have guys capable of filling that role as well.

“We’ll try to put defense pairs together that we think will give us the balance that we need,” Sullivan said. “And we’ll try to put people in certain roles that set them up for success.”

Without Pettersson in the fold, the Penguins lined up their defense pairings a bit differently on Monday. While the forward lines remained the same as they were in Thursday’s and Saturday’s games, here were the new pairings:

Owen Pickering-Kris Letang
Matt Grzelcyk-Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves-Ryan Shea

Pickering has worked his way into a top-four role with the team, and that role – and his minutes – only figure to expand without Pettersson in the picture.

Sullivan is impressed with the way the 20-year-old defenseman has adapted to his elevated role, praising his aptitude, his smarts, and his willingness to learn despite playing the “hardest position” in hockey.

“I think he’s adjusted extremely well given the type of workload that we’re giving him,” Sullivan said. “It’s not just minutes, it’s also the competition that he’s playing against and playing with, for that matter. So, we think he’s handled it extremely well.”

Even with Pickering figuring to bear the brunt of most of Pettersson’s minutes, the Penguins will still need to make a blue line move.

As it stands now, the Penguins only have six defensemen on their active roster. Jack St. Ivany – recently optioned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) – is on the shelf week-to-week with an injury, and he is currently rehabbing in Pittsburgh. Sebastian Aho is also nursing an injury, and WBS’s blue line in general is shorthanded as it is.

One guy to keep an eye on is Filip Kral. Kral has three goals and 12 points in 15 games with WBS this season, and he impressed for much of training camp. He was drafted by Penguins GM and POHO Kyle Dubas in the fifth round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, and he profiles as a puck-moving offensive defenseman.

Other options in WBS include Mac Hollowell – also a draftee of Dubas in 2018 who has 15 assists in 20 games – as well as Nathan Clurman (one goal, five points in 16 games), more a shutdown-type defenseman.

The Penguins are in short supply of true shutdown defensemen akin to Pettersson, so if they’d rather go that route than look in-house, don’t be surprised to see a signing or a small-scale trade for an extra, more defensive-oriented defensemen, either.