Two of the Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019 core franchise players \u2014 center Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang \u2013were absent from Friday\u2019s practice at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, and there won\u2019t be any sort of explanation until Saturday, according to the team.<\/p>\n
Two team\u2019s two alternate captains played Thursday in a 6-2 drumming<\/a> of the Chicago Blackhawks at home. Malkin had an assist and played 16:58. Letang had no points, was a minus-2 and played 21:15.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Malkin notably missed a month earlier this season because of a shoulder injury. He apparently got his shoulder bumped on the bench at the end of the Penguins\u2019 game Sunday in Vancouver and seemed to be in pain, but he was said to be, and seemed, OK.<\/p>\n Malkin, 39, has had a resurgence this season while healthy. He has 13 goals, 41 points in 37 games, has shown a lot of hop and recently has meshed with newcomer Egor Chinakhov as a linemate.<\/p>\n Letang, 38, has played in 50 of the Penguins\u2019 52 games this season. He has three goals, 25 points.<\/p>\n The Penguins on Saturday host the New York Rangers in an afternoon game. Presumably, the update the team has planned will come before the game. The Penguins will celebrate the 10th anniversary season of the 2016 Stanley Cup championship.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The post Letang, Malkin\u2019s Mysterious Absence From Practice<\/a> appeared first on Pittsburgh Hockey Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two of the Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019 core franchise players \u2014 center Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang \u2013were absent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[96,1495,5,1499,4,118,1469,100,5216,2171,17305,893],"class_list":{"0":"post-437504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","9":"tag-evgeni-malkin","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-kris-letang","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-penguins","14":"tag-pittsburgh","15":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","16":"tag-pittsburghpenguins","17":"tag-the-penguins","18":"tag-upmc-lemieux-sports-complex","19":"tag-vancouver"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115987804798889818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437504","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=437504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}