Penguins forward Evan Rodrigues will be sidelined indefinitely because of an undisclosed injury.
Coach Mike Sullivan announced Rodrigues’ status following practice in Cranberry on Monday. Sullivan did not offer many specifics beyond describing the ailment as “longer term” and “lower body.”
Rodrigues appeared to injure the right knee portion of his lower body during Sunday’s 3-2 home win against the New York Rangers at PPG Paints Arena. At 9:11 of the second period, Rodrigues slammed Rangers forward Filip Chytil with a hit inside the Penguins’ blue line.
On the sequence, each players’ right knee collided with with one another. Neither player finished the game.
Primarily deployed on the right wing of the top line, Rodrigues has appeared in six games this season and has one goal.
In his place during Monday’s practice, Bryan Rust skated on the top line.
The team’s lines and defensive pairings during practice were:
59 Jake Guentzel - 87 Sidney Crosby - 17 Bryan Rust
16 Jason Zucker - 71 Evgeni Malkin - 42 Kasperi Kapanen
19 Jared McCann - 53 Teddy Blueger - 13 Brandon Tanev
10 Drew O’Connor - 14 Mark Jankowski - 7 Colton Sceviour/18 Sam Lafferty
8 Brian Dumoulin - 58 Kris Letang
6 John Marino - 4 Cody Ceci
73 P.O Joseph - 2 Chad Ruhwedel
27 Kevin Czuczman
Czcuzman, Lafferty and O’Connor are each still assigned to the taxi squad and would need a formal recall to the NHL roster to play in Tuesday’s road game against the Boston Bruins.
