{"id":395541,"date":"2026-01-07T13:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/395541\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T13:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:01:10","slug":"pens-points-malkin-close-to-a-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/395541\/","title":{"rendered":"Pens Points: Malkin close to a return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here are your Pens Points for this Wednesday morning&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Goaltender Arturs Silovs will represent Team Latvia at the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy, it was announced on Tuesday. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/penguins\/news\/penguins-goaltender-arturs-silovs-to-represent-team-latvia-at-the-olympic-winter-games-milano-cortina-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Penguins<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rookie forward Rutger McGroarty left a practice session on Tuesday due to an apparent injury. [<a href=\"https:\/\/triblive.com\/sports\/penguins-rookie-forward-rutger-mcgroarty-leaves-practice-with-apparent-injury\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trib Live<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But here is some good news on the injury front: Evgeni Malkin said he is hopeful to return to game action this week after missing the last 15 games with an upper-body injury. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/penguins\/news\/malkin-hopeful-to-return-this-week\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Penguins<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">ICYMI: Longtime NHL defenseman and former Penguin Jack Johnson has retired from professional hockey, joining the Vancouver Canucks organization as a professional scout. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pensburgh.com\/general\/71319\/jack-johnson-retires-hired-by-canucks-as-a-professional-scout\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PensBurgh<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The time is rapidly approaching for the Penguins to make more than just a stopgap decision with defensive prospect Harrison Brunicke and his development. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pensburgh.com\/pittsburgh-penguins-prospe\/71252\/penguins-face-next-decision-point-on-harrison-brunickes-season\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PensBurgh<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Our long Egor Zamula nightmare is finally over. Zamula is signing a one-year deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets, according to his agent. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/article\/zamula-clears-unconditional-waivers-contract-to-be-terminated\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TSN<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>News and notes from around the NHL\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Blue Jackets have announced another front office move, naming Laurence Gilman vice president of hockey operations, the team said Tuesday morning. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/article\/blue-jackets-add-former-leafs-executive-gilman-to-front-office\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TSN<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate the fans ran (Mitch) Marner out of town. I mean, that\u2019s a huge impact for their group. He\u2019s a point-per-game player \u2014 that hurts,\u201d Florida Panthers (and former Boston Bruins) forward Brad Marchand said to the media before the Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs battled on Tuesday. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/nhl\/article\/panthers-marchand-says-maple-leafs-fans-ran-marner-out-of-town\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sportsnet<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Muskegon Lumberjacks forward Tynan Lawrence, considered a top player ahead of the 2026 draft, is electing to play for the NCAA\u2019s Boston University Terriers for the remainder of the season, according to NHL insider Darren Dreger. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/ncaa\/article\/2026-top-prospect-lawrence-to-join-ncaas-boston-university-for-rest-of-the-season\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TSN<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are your Pens Points for this Wednesday morning&#8230; Goaltender Arturs Silovs will represent Team Latvia at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[5,40,4,118,33852,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-395541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-penguins","12":"tag-pens-points","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115853950126743688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}