{"id":437555,"date":"2026-01-31T05:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/437555\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T05:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:10:18","slug":"letang-malkins-mysterious-absence-from-practice-updated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/437555\/","title":{"rendered":"Letang, Malkin’s Mysterious Absence From Practice (UPDATED)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two of the Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019 core franchise players \u2014 center Evgeni Malkin<\/a> and defenseman Kris Letang<\/a> \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

The team\u2019s two alternate captains played Thursday in a 6-2 drumming 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

UPDATE: Coach Dan Muse didn\u2019t offer much more. The only real information from Muse was that the absences are medical.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, a couple things (are) just being looked at. And so I don\u2019t have any updates right now,\u201d Muse said. \u201cI\u2019m still waiting to get some updates, and so we\u2019re going to provide those once we have them. But there\u2019s really nothing\u2013I don\u2019t have anything new to report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malkin, 39, 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 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<\/a> as a linemate.<\/p>\n

Letang, 38, has played in 50 of the Penguins\u2019 52 games this season. He has three goals and 25 points. He missed two games because of an upper-body recently before returning for the past two games.<\/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

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: Evgeni Malkin<\/a> Kris Letang<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> Shelly Anderson<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized:Penguins News<\/a><\/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":437556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[1495,5,1499,4,118,1469,100,5216,2124],"class_list":{"0":"post-437555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-evgeni-malkin","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-kris-letang","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-penguins","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-pittsburghpenguins","16":"tag-shelly-anderson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115987993341345395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437555","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=437555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}