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Penguins Notes: Rakell, Ruhwedel, Acciari

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The voice of the Pittsburgh Penguins Josh Getzoff tweeted today that Penguins winger Rickard Rakell is back at the team’s practice today in a regular practice jersey. Rakell is eligible to come off the LTIR tomorrow and has been skating for about a week. Rakell has been out of the lineup with an upper-body injury since November 19th.

Rakell has struggled this season with just four assists in 17 games. It’s difficult to believe that he hasn’t scored yet given that he’s played with Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby for the bulk of his shifts. Rakell hasn’t played poorly, he continues to drive play when he is on the ice, but he’s been unable to finish when he’s had chances, and he has continued to get chances this year with 38 shots on goal.

His return will be something to keep an eye on as he has played primarily with Malkin and Reilly Smith but has historically played better with Crosby and Jake Guentzel who are flanked now by fourth-liner Drew O’Connor.

If Rakell can get going, it would be a big boost for the Penguins who have struggled to score goals in recent weeks.

In other Penguins notes:

  • Getzoff also tweeted that Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel is back in regular practice jersey as well. Ruhwedel is week-to-week right now with a lower-body injury that has kept him out of the lineup since November 19th. No word on a return date yet for the 33-year-old, but when he does re-join the lineup, it will create a further logjam for the Penguins’ bottom defensive pairing. Ruhwedel has a single assist in 15 games this season and has struggled at times defensively which is uncharacteristic given that he typically plays a safe and simple brand of defense.
  • Getzoff also offered an update on forward Noel Acciari stating that the 32-year-old was back at Penguins practice today in a white no-contact jersey. Acciari was put on the injured reserve about a week ago and is eligible to play if he can. His first season for Pittsburgh has been a rollercoaster thus far as early on he was part of a fourth line alongside Jeff Carter and Matt Nieto that just couldn’t get anything going offensively. None of the three players registered a point in the Penguins’ first ten games, however, once the line was broken up Nieto and Acciari seemed to play better. Acciari still doesn’t contribute much offensively but has settled in nicely on the Penguins penalty kill.

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.

Penguins Recall Three Players, Place Noel Acciari On IR

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The Pittsburgh Penguins’ bottom two lines will have a very different look tonight when they take on the Florida Panthers. The Penguins are desperate to turn things around after a very poor showing against the Tampa Bay Lightning two nights ago and are hoping a shakeup in their bottom six can fix some of their issues. Today the Penguins announced that they’ve recalled forwards Marc Johnstone, Jonathan Gruden, and Valtteri Puustinen from their AHL affiliate.

Johnstone is in his first year with the Penguins organization after signing a two-year, two-way contract on July 2nd. At 27 years old he has never dressed in an NHL game before, meaning he could see his first NHL action in a Penguins jersey. Thus far this season the native of Cranford, New Jersey has two goals and three assists at the AHL level in 21 games.

Gruden was acquired by the Penguins from the Ottawa Senators in the Matt Murray trade back in October 2020 after he was selected in the fourth round of the 2018 NHL entry draft. He dressed in three NHL games in Pittsburgh last season tallying zero points while averaging just over five minutes of ice time per game. In the AHL this season, Gruden has registered five goals and five assists in 21 games.

Puustinen is probably the most intriguing of the three call-ups as he has the longest track record of offensive success at the AHL level. He has started slowly this year with just five goals and five assists in 18 games but does have one NHL game under his belt back in 2022. In his only NHL action Puustinen recorded an assist in just over ten minutes of action.

The recalls demonstrate just how desperate the Penguins are to find a fix to their bottom six woes. Pittsburgh hasn’t been able to find much success outside of their top two lines, and with injuries to Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, their lack of NHL quality depth is beginning to become apparent.

In a corresponding move, the Penguins also assigned forwards Alex Nylander and Joona Koppanen to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL. Many thought that Nylander turned a corner at the end of last season, but his play this year has been uninspired. He had no points in five games during this recall and looked overwhelmed on most of his shifts. Koppanen didn’t fare any better, going pointless in three games. He struggled on the Penguins’ fourth line with Pittsburgh unable to generate much of anything offensively with the 25-year-old on the ice.

Finally, the Penguins also announced that they’ve placed center Noel Acciari on the injured reserve. Acciari struggled to start the season but was starting to settle in on the fourth line when he was hurt. He also found a role on the Penguins penalty kill which has been one of the few bright spots for the Penguins this season. Acciari has been unable to dress in the Penguins past three games and won’t be eligible to get back in the lineup until next Tuesday. In 22 games this season, the 32-year-old has two goals and one assist while averaging over 12 minutes of ice time per game.

Penguins Announce Several Injury Updates

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Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan has provided an update on the team’s injuries. He shared that Noel Acciari will travel with the team on their upcoming three-game road trip. The centerman is not yet skating after suffering a lower-body injury, but Sullivan doesn’t expect he’ll miss much time. Sullivan also shared that Matthew Nieto will not join the team on the road trip, while Rickard Rakell and Chad Ruhwedel are returning to the ice and will join the trip.

Nieto and Acciari are both in their first year with the Penguins and have both appeared in 22 games so far. Acciari has managed a modest two goals and three points, also recording four penalty minutes and a +4. He also ranks third among the team’s centermen in faceoff percentage, winning 52.2 percent of the 224 faceoffs he’s taken this season. Nieto has tallied one goal and four points on the year, adding a +5.

The two depth forwards currently rank last on the Penguins in CF% (Corsi-For percentage) and xGF% (expected-goals-for percentage), showing their struggles through the early season. Acciari, 32, is a veteran of 406 NHL games after signing with the Boston Bruins as an undrafted free agent in 2015. Nieto, 31, was a second-round selection in the 2011 NHL Draft and has appeared in 673 NHL games.

Rakell, who could see a return to action soon, has played in 17 games of his own this season, recording four assists, but is still looking for his first goal of the year. The 30-year-old winger is coming off of a 28-goal, 60-point performance last season – his first full year with the Penguins. Pittsburgh could also get back veteran defender Chad Ruhwedel, who has been with the Penguins since the 2016-17 season. Ruhwedel has appeared in 15 games this season, netting one assist and a -3.

Injury Updates: Boyd, Dermott, Acciari, Nieto, Gadjovich

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The upper-body injury that Coyotes center Travis Boyd suffered against Colorado on Thursday is not a short-term one, notes PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan (Twitter link).  Instead, head coach Andre Tourigny indicated that the 30-year-old will be out for multiple weeks.  It has been a rough year for Boyd this season.  He cleared waivers at the end of training camp despite coming off a 34-point season; his $1.75MM contract likely played a role in that.  While he wasn’t sent down to AHL Tucson, he hasn’t been a regular either, seeing action in just 16 of 22 games so far.  To his credit, Boyd has been relatively productive in those games with eight points despite logging less than ten minutes a night but he won’t be adding to those point totals for a little while now.

Other injury news from around the NHL:

  • Still with Arizona, Morgan adds in a separate tweet that blueliner Travis Dermott isn’t quite ready to return tonight against St. Louis. The 26-year-old has missed more than three weeks with an upper-body injury of his own.  Dermott has played in ten games with the Coyotes this season after signing a two-way deal with them in free agency, picking up one assist while averaging 17:29 per contest.
  • The Penguins will be without a pair of veteran forwards tonight versus Philadelphia. Head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters including Justin Guerriero of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that forwards Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto will not play tonight due to lower-body injuries.  There’s no word yet on how long the fourth liners will miss.  Vinnie Hinostroza and Joona Koppanen will take their place in the lineup.
  • Panthers winger Jonah Gadjovich is dealing with an upper-body injury and won’t play tonight against the Islanders, notes team reporter Jameson Olive. The 25-year-old got in a fight in the final minute of Thursday’s victory over Montreal, one that apparently caused the injury.  Gadjovich has played in seven games since having his contract converted to an NHL deal, notching an assist and 41 penalty minutes while logging 6:22 per night.  Steven Lorentz will suit up in Gadjovich’s absence.

Evening Notes: Canucks, Sharks, Carter

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TSN Insider Darren Dreger is reporting that the Vancouver Canucks are looking for a right-shot defenseman. The surprising Canucks have started the season 9-2-1 and are currently among the league’s elite a month into the regular season. Vancouver was projected to be a bubble team this year but have outperformed expectations to this point. The Canucks have considerable depth in their forward group, particularly on the wing and are hoping to be able to use an excess winger to acquire a defenseman.

Unfortunately for the Canucks, most of the teams they are talking trade with have little to no interest in acquiring a player and are looking for futures. This further complicates a potential move for Vancouver as they have precious little cap space to facilitate such a transaction. According to CapFriendly, the Canucks have $162,500 in cap space, meaning that they wouldn’t even be able to add a player on a league minimum contract.

In other notes:

  • TSN Insider Chris Johnston is reporting that he doesn’t believe the San Jose Sharks will make a big trade or a coaching change in the coming weeks as they weather one of the worst starts to a season in NHL history. The Sharks were expected to finish the season near the bottom of the NHL standings, but no one predicted they would start the season this poorly. Johnston adds that Sharks general manager Mike Grier met with the team yesterday and stated that any improvements would need to come from within the group, although Grier didn’t rule out making changes if the Sharks don’t show any improvement in the coming weeks.
  • NHL.com is reporting that Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jeff Carter will be a healthy scratch for the second game in a row tonight when the Penguins take on the Anaheim Ducks. It is just the second time in his 19-year NHL career that the veteran will be scratched after he has struggled to start the season. Carter has no points in nine games and was part of a struggling fourth line that failed to provide a single point in the first nine games of the season. Head coach Mike Sullivan scratched Carter for the last game and opted to dress Vinnie Hinostroza against the San Jose Sharks in a game the Penguins won 10-2. Hinostroza had a goal and an assist, and fellow fourth-liners Matt Nieto and Noel Acciari produced their first points of the season as well.

Latest On Pittsburgh Penguins Roster

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The Pittsburgh Penguins finally found a goal scorer in their bottom six forwards as Radim Zohorna lit the lamp in the final minutes of the Penguins’ 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues last night. Zohorna was playing in his first game of the season after being sent down to the AHL after a strong training camp and formed a unit with fellow winger Drew O’Connor and center Lars Eller.

After the game, Penguins Coach Mike Sullivan was visibly frustrated with his team’s play, and while he didn’t talk about roster decisions going forward, General Manager Kyle Dubas has been. Dubas spoke with NHL On TNT just a few nights ago and said he wanted the bottom six forwards to be tougher to play against and added that he didn’t feel the group was there yet. Dubas’ comments sparked speculation that the Penguins could be looking to make a move in the bottom six and they did by waiving Jansen Harkins and re-calling Zohorna before last night’s game. The Penguins also health-scratched defenseman P.O. Joseph in favor of Ryan Shea who made his NHL debut on the Penguins’ third pairing.

Kyle Dubas stocked up on fringe NHL talent in the offseason and has stashed many of those options in the AHL specifically for a moment like this. The Penguins AHL affiliate has so many veterans in fact that Alex Nylander and Andreas Johnsson had to be veteran scratches for last night’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins game. On top of Nylander, Johnsson, and Harkins, the Penguins also have Vinnie Hinostroza, Rem Pitlick, and Colin White as former NHLers who could be called up to shuffle the furniture in the Penguins bottom six.

Josh Yohe of The Athletic wrote in his 10 Postgame Observations piece that Sullivan typically doesn’t make major changes after a loss, but given the team’s recent record and his comments, he implies that it could happen. The Penguins third line of O’Connor, Eller and Zohorna was very good last night, however, the fourth line of Matthew Nieto, Jeff Carter and Noel Acciari has offered very little to the team and appears to be constantly chasing the play. That group is at the bottom of the Penguins lineup in almost every analytical statistic and has a combined zero points in five games together. Sullivan has been apprehensive about scratching Carter in the past and became defensive with the media last season on multiple occasions when the topic was asked about.

It might be just five games into the season but given that the Penguins are 2-3 against five teams that didn’t make the playoffs last season, there could be big changes brewing in Pittsburgh as Dubas and company try to find an identity for the bottom six forwards. A competent bottom-six has been something the Penguins have lacked since they lost Brandon Tanev (and Jared McCann via trade) in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft and it was one of the big reasons they missed the playoffs in 2023.

Injury Notes: Dvorak, Mayfield, Penguins

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Montreal Canadiens forward Christian Dvorak has so far missed the entirety of his team’s young season, though his absence could be quickly coming to an end. The Canadiens announced today that Dvorak “wore a standard practice jersey during the on-ice session” of today’s practice. It can be inferred from this that a return to game action for Dvorak is on the horizon.

Dvorak’s return would come at an important time for the Canadiens, who are reeling from the season-long loss of second-line center Kirby Dach. Dvorak isn’t Dach, but he has scored at a 42-point pace as a Canadien and offers genuine value at the faceoff dot. There’s a possibility Dvorak takes the second-line center job Dach vacated, shifting Alex Newhook back to the wing. It’s possible Dvorak ends up on the third line with Brendan Gallagher in a move that might land Sean Monahan with Newhook and Juraj Slafkovský, the latter a player Monahan showed genuine chemistry with last season.

Some other notes from across the NHL:

  • New York Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield will miss tonight’s game due to his lower-body injury, according to head coach Lane Lambert. (as relayed by Newsday’s Andrew Gross) Mayfield did skate this morning, something Lambert called a “first step” toward a return to full game action. The Islanders have gotten off to a strong 2-0-0 start, but maintaining that momentum could be more difficult without Mayfield, who is one of the Islanders’ more important defensemen. Mayfield ranked second on the team in time on ice per game last season, skating in 21:01 per night including a team-leading 2:41 logged short-handed.
  • According to Pittsburgh Penguins team reporter Michelle Crechiolo, defenseman Kris Letang and forward Noel Acciari were both back on the ice for this morning’s practice. The pair had missed yesterday’s practice due to injury, and there was some uncertainty over how long those ailments would keep the players out of head coach Mike Sullivan’s lineup. Thankfully for the Penguins, though, it appears both Acciari and Letang won’t have to face extended absences due to those injuries.

Injury Notes: Devils, Penguins, Ducks

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NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky has shared that Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek will likely both miss New Jersey’s Friday night game with an upper-body and lower-body injury respectively. Haula was the only one of the two to play in the team’s most recent game, being named the game’s third star after a two-point performance. Head coach Lindy Ruff told Novozinsky that the duo will likely not travel with the team on their upcoming two-game road trip.

The absence of Haula and Nosek leaves a dent in New Jersey’s bottom six that’s expected to be filled by Curtis Lazar and Nathan Bastian. Bastian has been with the Devils for five of his six NHL seasons, briefly joining the Seattle Kraken for 12 games of the 2021-22 season before the Devils claimed him off waivers partway through the year. Lazar is a much more recent addition, joining the Devils via trade ahead of the 2022-23 trade deadline. He’s only played six games with the Devils between last season and this season and has yet to record a point. New Jersey could also turn towards summer signee Chris Tierney to fill an empty role. Tierney has yet to make his debut with the Devils.

Other injury notes:

Latest On Pittsburgh Penguins Roster Decisions

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Josh Yohe of The Athletic speculated last night about who the Pittsburgh Penguins will keep as their 12th and 13th forwards. As mentioned in an article earlier this week, the Penguins had a litany of options in their bottom six and have whittled that number down to just a few players. Yohe figures that Jeff Carter, Lars Eller, Drew O’Connor, Matthew Nieto, and Noel Acciari should be locked in to start the season on the third and fourth lines. This leaves just two spots as the Penguins typically like to carry 13 forwards.

Yohe believes that the final two spots will come down to three players Radim Zohorna, recent waiver pickup Jansen Harkins, and Colin White who is currently on a PTO. Yohe seemed particularly impressed with Harkins, who was acquired off waivers on Monday and at 26 years old, could be a late bloomer. He scored 25 goals in 44 AHL games last season and has played 154 NHL games in his career. Harkins has inserted himself physically in the pre-season, something that the Penguins don’t have a lot of.

Zohorna has bounced around the league since coming to North America in 2020. He has been a member of the Penguins previously, the Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs. In 35 NHL games, he has 5 goals and 6 assists, and while those numbers don’t jump off the screen, he has been very effective in the preseason and offers size at 6’6” and 230 pounds.

Yohe believes that Harkins and Zohorna should be the final two players to make the Penguins NHL roster although he does concede that White is a legitimate NHLer with some upside. The Penguins don’t have a lot of scoring options in the bottom six and White is a former first-round pick who has posted 44 goals and 69 assists in 292 NHL games.

Whoever the Penguins elect to cut will likely find work elsewhere, which should make for interesting roster gymnastics as the Penguins try to maximize their forward depth and keep as many players as they can. The Penguins start the season on October 10th against the Chicago Blackhawks and will need to decide their lineup before the start of the season.

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