The Penguins held a Sunday morning practice earlier today at the Mohegan Sun Arena. It's hard to tell from the photo above but goaltender Jeff Zatkoff practiced in full today and from what I gathered from the team, they're labeling Zatkoff's absence from Thursday's Game Three as a "sickness". It appears as though there aren't any injury concerns with Zatkoff.
"Back to normal," head coach John Hynes said on Zatkoff. "It was minor but is was enough where we felt it wasn't best to play him."
The team as a whole has been about as healthy as it has all season. Only forwards Phil Dupuis and Tom Kuhnhackl are out of the lineup, and both have been out since the winter months of the season.
The Penguins still don't know their opponent for the second round, as the Providence Bruins staved off elimination in Hershey last night. Game Four of that series goes down today.
If the Bears win, the Penguins will face the Syracuse Crunch in round two.
If the Bruins win, that series goes to a Game Five on Wednesday night. If the Bruins complete the comeback, the Penguins will travel to Providence and take on the Bruins in the second round.
I spoke to coach about the East Divsion, which could see three teams in the conference semifinals later this week.
"It's a great division," Hynes said. "Every year coming in you know that it's going to be a real tough battle within our division."
The past nine Eastern Conference champions have come from the East Division. Six of those of nine have went on to win the Calder Cup. There's no questioning the talent-level and depth of the teams in the East Division. It's still very possible that the road to the Calder Cup for the Penguins could go through every team in the division that made the playoffs.
The Penguins are scheduled to have another practice tomorrow morning at Coal Street, so expect the next form of an update to come sometime tomorrow afternoon.
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