Wednesday's WBS Penguins UPDATE: Knocking Off the Rust

There are plenty of injuries so far, just five games into the AHL Penguins 13th season.

Wednesday's Quick Hits:

• For those who missed it yesterday, Brian Strait was recalled to Pittsburgh to replace a suspended Kris Letang. In last night's game against the Minnesota Wild, Strait logged only about six and a half minutes of ice time and left the game with an upper body injury. Rumors point to an elbow injury. His status for Pittsburgh's game tomorrow against the Montreal Canadiens is up in the air.
• At the Coal Street Rink today, the WBS Penguins held a two hour practice from 10 a.m. to noon. Missing from the session were forwards Ryan Craig, Keven Veilleux, Brian Day and Matt Rust. 
• Rust actually came out for practice towards the end of practice and skated after with Robert Bortuzzo and assistant coach Alain Nasreddine. It was apparent that both are not 100% ready for game action, but Bortuzzo skated the whole practice in a regular contact jersey. Hopefully he will be ready to play this weekend.
• Rust was wearing the red no-contact jersey. Bortuzzo was in a regular jersey along with Ben Street, Jason Williams and Nick Petersen. Petersen was still sporting a swollen right eye and using a face shield.
• It appears no call-ups are coming from Wilkes-Barre to Pittsburgh as everyone was in attendance and nobody left early. Coach Hynes didn't mention anything about call-ups after practice while talking off-ice to fans and media. If a call up is to be made, expect it to be Alexandre Picard. Either way, Letang can play in Pittsburgh's next game so the call up would be able to meet the WBS Penguins in Springfield on Friday. 

Here are the lines I took down during a 5 on 5 drill:

Eric Tangradi (#25) - Brian Gibbons (#9)- Jason Williams (#18)
Niko Dimitrakos (#52) - Ben Street (#10) - Paul Thompson (#37)
Geoff Walker (#17) - Bryan Lerg (#19) - Colin McDonald (#13)
Brandon DeFazio (#24) - Zach Sill (#11) - Nick Petersen (#8)
Ryan Schnell (#38) - Cody Chupp (#16) - Devin DiDiomete (#14)

Alexandre Picard (#45) - Robert Bortuzzo (#15)
Carl Sneep (#4) - Simon Despres (#47)
Philip Samuelsson (#5) -Joey Mormina (#3)
Cody Wild (#6) - Alex Grant (#20)

Brad Thiessen (#39) - Scott Munroe (#43)

The Penguins worked on the power play and penalty kill during most of the second half of practice. Here's what the lines looked like for that.

Power Play #1
Picard-Williams, McDonald-Gibbons/Street-Dimitrakos

Power Play #2
Sneep-Despres, Tangradi-Lerg-Walker

Back to practice tomorrow to find out who will be on the ice in Springfield on Friday.

Stay tuned, Highland Park Hockey has you covered for the Penguins road trips this weekend to Springfield, Mass. and Hershey, Pa. Follow updates at practices as well as live in-game updates on the blog's Twitter feed: @H_P_Hockey.

Go Penguins!