THURSDAY PRACTICE REPORT: Samuelsson Skating, Ebbett Still Missing & Zlobin Ready For Game One

Philip Samuelsson skated today at the team's practice. Will he be ready to return for Game One tomorrow night?

Three bits of news on the eve of round two, with two good and one not so good. First the good news:

• Philip Samuelsson has resumed skating and could quite possibly make his return to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins blueline tomorrow night for Game One against Providence. He wore a red, no-contact jersey this morning but was a full participant in the team's 60 minute session. UPDATE: Per Jonathan Bombulie, Samuelsson is out this weekend and will be re-evaluated next week.

• Anton Zlobin, who wore a red jersey on Tuesday, was sporting a regular practice jersey today and also participated in all of the team's drills. I'd imagine he is expected to return to the WBS lineup tomorrow.

• Andrew Ebbett, who was said to have had a maintenance day on Tuesday, did not practice with the team this morning. His status for Game One is very much up in the air. UPDATE: Per Bombulie, head coach John Hynes said Ebbett is "day-to-day with an upper body injury" but all signs point to him playing tomorrow night.

Everyone else was present and accounted for, including recently re-assigned forward Jayson Megna. Joining the main group were ATO's Bryan Rust, Scott Wilson and Conor Sheary as well as Mike Carman and Spencer Machacek.



Just a guess, but judging from today's practice I think these will be the expected lines for Game One:

Sheary - Kobasew - Machacek/Zlobin
Zolnierczyk - Drazenovic - Kostopoulos
Payerl - Rowney - Megna
Uher - Sill - Farnham

McNeill - Samuelsson/Despres
Harrington - Mikkelson
Dumoulin - Despres/Goers

If Ebbett is unable to play tomorrow, Machacek - who has been the team's veteran scratch in three of their four playoff games - could return to the lineup as WBS won't need a veteran scratch. It'll be interesting to see who the odd men out are for tomorrow as the team didn't have any formal line rushes in today's practice.

Here's the lines from the last game vs. Binghamton. With Ebbett's and Samuelsson's status questionable and Megna/Zlobin back, things will be interesting.

Sheary - Ebbett - Kobasew
Zolnierczyk - Drazenovic - Kostopoulos
Rust - Rowney - Payerl
Uher - Sill - Farnham

McNeill - Despres
Mikkelson - Harrington
Dumoulin - Goers