Penguins have an absence in practice, a return nears and waiver wire possibilities

News and notes around the Penguins on Wednesday afternoon

The Penguins stuck around in New York to get one more practice in this afternoon before flying to Carolina for the next leg of their road trip. There were two interesting developments on the ice, one in a positive direction and one in a negative one.

The good was that Bryan Rust was back on the ice in a full contact jersey. The bad is that Kevin Hayes was missing and has some sort of minor-ish injury.

Getting Rust back ASAP is critical for the Penguins right now, but more than that, they need him to actually be at 100% to function. The Athletic’s Josh Yohe reported that Rust’s injury in Vancouver on October 26th was a re-aggravation of the lower body injury he suffered in training camp several weeks earlier. That something could be hanging over his head for weeks and weeks is a big concern.

As such, Rust might not be playing tomorrow night to give him a little more time to heal up, but it’s a positive that he hasn’t been officially ruled out from coming back in the near future. The sooner he’s at 100% (or close enough to play), the better it will be for the team.

It’s unfortunate for Hayes to get banged up, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to play in the upcoming games tomorrow and Friday or need to leave the lineup for the first time this year. If so, Pittsburgh has Valtteri Puustinen to get back in there if Rust isn’t ready. Injured forward Matt Nieto is approaching a return of his own.

Shifting gears, an interesting name popped up on the waiver wire.

Defensemen can be tough to find, and for a team like the Penguins they can’t be turning down opportunities to improve - no matter how marginal it may be.

Could Lucas Carlsson be a player that Pittsburgh is interested in? He stands out for some crazy good stats at the AHL level in the past few years with AHL Charlotte. In the past two seasons, Carlsson has scored 35 total goals in the AHL. I don’t think the Penguins have any forwards who have scored 35 goals in the AHL in the last two years.

Anyways, Charlotte is the former team of John Ludvig, who the Pens claimed in October 2023, so obviously that team has been very well-scouted by the organization in the past considering that not many even knew who Ludvig was at the time he was claimed. That won’t be the same for Carlsson, who has 60 career NHL games and two big AHL years recently.

On the flipside, Carlsson is coming off a torn ACL from only nine months ago. He’s 27 and hasn’t stuck in the NHL with a couple of different chances. His upside and impact at the NHL level isn’t going to be high. And it doesn’t look good when a team as weak as San Jose with plenty of cap and roster space is electing to try and start him in the AHL to work back into form after the major knee injury.

That said, the Penguins’ defense is so bad, any opportunity to add some freshness has to at least be considered. Carlsson’s injury, lack of NHL pedigree and overall defensive game might not have a lot to offer to Pittsburgh at the moment, but it’s probably worth the thought discussion as to whether or not he could bring some element the team lacks.