The Penguins are scheduled to start backup goaltender Casey DeSmith for Sunday’s road game against the New York Islanders at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.
It will be DeSmith’s first game since Feb. 11 when he made 26 saves on 29 shots in a 4-3 road shootout win against the Islanders.
This season, DeSmith has appeared in six games and has a 4-1-0 record along with a 2.84 goals against average as well as an .885 save percentage.
With Sunday’s game starting a little after 5 p.m. — less than 24 hours following Saturday’s 4-3 overtime road win against the Islanders that started a few minutes after 7 p.m. — the Penguins are turning to DeSmith and giving starter Tristan Jarry a night off. On Saturday, Jarry made 24 saves on 27 shots.
Jarry has started the past seven games and during that time, he has a 5-2-0 record along with a 2.41 goals against average and .923 save percentage.
Notes:
• With Mark Jankowski sidelined due to an undisclosed injury — presumed to be related to a late hit he absorbed from Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson on Thursday — the Penguins shuffled their fourth line during Saturday’s game.
Sam Lafferty slid into Jankowski’s role as the fourth line center while forward Anthony Angello made his season debut.
Logging 9:07 of ice time on 12 shifts, Angello had one shot on two attempts. He also managed to clock in 3:08 of ice time on the second power-play unit.
At 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, Angello is one of the largest players in the organization.
“He brings us some size,” coach Mike Sullivan said via video conference. “He can skate. He has a physical dimension to his game. He plays a simple, reliable, trustworthy game, and we thought we’d try him on that fourth line. I thought he had some good minutes for us. He can play at the net-front on our second power-play (unit). He’s done a lot of that at the (American Hockey League) level in (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton). I thought Anthony had a good game for us.”
As for Lafferty, he logged only 6:36 of ice time on nine shifts and was 2 for 5 (40%) in faceoffs as he played his first game of the season at the center position primarily.
Sullivan acknowledged Lafferty is a better fit as a winger but expressed comfort in using him as a center when the need arises.
“We see him more as a wing but he has the ability to play center,” Sullivan said. “He’s played center in the past, he played center in college, he’s played center at the (American Hockey League) level. So, he has (experience) playing the center ice position. We like the speed that he brings and the physicality that he brings when he plays on the wing. But as necessity right now, we used him at the center ice position. But quite honestly, just the versatility and having the ability to play both, depending on what the needs are of the team are at the time, I think is an important aspect of Sam’s game as well because those types of players are valuable to teams.”
• Since he was claimed from the Philadelphia Flyers via waivers on Wednesday, defenseman Mark Friedman has served as a healthy scratch in two games with the Penguins.
A third-round pick in 2014 by the Flyers when current Penguins general manager Ron Hextall held that same role in Philadelphia, Friedman was acquired to provide depth for the Penguins.
“He’s a good young player,” Sullivan said. “Skates well, good puck-moving defenseman and he has a little bit to his game. He’s got a little bit of edge and physicality to his game as well. So he’s a guy that’s just another young defenseman that we all think that we can add to the complement of young (defensemen) that we have here, that gives us a chance to be competitive in both the short term and the long term. That was the motivation to claim him. We’re looking forward to getting more familiar with his game as we coach him here now that we have him.”
• Sullivan’s baseline consideration for each and every game he coaches is to win the two points immediately in front of him.
But he acknowledges he has to sometimes consider the two points that are immediately behind those two points.
Such as with Sunday’s game.
How does Sullivan deploy his players during the first game in sets of contests on back-to-back days?
“It depends on how the game plays out,” Sullivan said. “We certainly go into the (first) game utilizing the whole bench as best we can, but circumstances throughout the course of the game are going to dictate how all that plays out. What I will say is that when two points are on the line and we have the ability to win the game, I think that becomes the priority at some point during the course of the game. But certainly our intent going into games is to utilize the bench as best as we can, understanding the big picture that we’ve got a lot of games here coming up.”
• The Islanders are scheduled to start rookie goaltender Ilya Sorokin. In four games this esason, he has a 1-2-1 record along with a 2.74 goals against average, an .895 save percentage and one shutout. He has never played the Penguins.
Follow the Penguins all season long.
Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at srorabaugh@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Categories: Penguins/NHL | Sports
"start" - Google News
March 01, 2021 at 02:26AM
https://ift.tt/3bNaspA
Penguins to start goaltender Casey DeSmith in rematch with Islanders - TribLIVE
"start" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2yVRai7
https://ift.tt/2WhNuz0
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Penguins to start goaltender Casey DeSmith in rematch with Islanders - TribLIVE"
Post a Comment