Final: Red Wings 7, Pens 2

The Penguins lost 7-2 to the Red Wings tonight, their final home game of the exhibition schedule. 

One bright spot was Daniel Sprong, who continues to make a case for himself. He drew significant praise from assistant coach Rick Tocchet who filled in for Coach Mike Johnston at the podium after the game.

“For me, since development camp every day he’s gotten better. He’s gaining inches. As you guys saw he was probably our best forward tonight,” said Tocchet. “He’s a talented guy. Asks a lot of questions, and his details away from the puck that he probably wasn’t at NHL level yet, he’s getting better…They’re evaluating. He’s in the mix.”

Of NOTE

Roster trim

10:20 p.m.: The Penguins trimmed the roster by four more players after tonight’s game. Forwards Oskar Sundqvist, Conor Sheary and Scott Wilson, and goalie Matt Murray were all sent to the team’s AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Power surge? 

The Penguins scored their only two goals on the power play, a pretty one by Sprong who charged up the right wing and banked a shot off a defenseman at 17:01 of the second period. Beau Bennett, who is having a nice camp, deflected in a power play goal at 1:49 of the third.

Sidney Crosby said they have evaluated it, but with so many different lineups so far it hasn’t been easy.

"You know what? It's hard to evaluate it,“ said Crosby. ”We've had different combinations and I think depending on who's out there – guys are in different spots, that kind of thing – it's easy to say have a shooting mentality and do certain things. But when guys are in different spots, you do look to get the puck to guys in certain areas probably a little bit more than you would when you're simplifying things and have the normal unit. I think we just got to find a way to keep that same mentality no matter who's out there in what spot. That will be a challenge all year for our power play, not just because of the different combinations. We want to still make sure we're shooting the puck. That's still kind of got to be our mentality throughout regardless of combinations."

Perron gets top line shot

In addition to getting a chance to play on the left wing of the team's top line with Crosby and right winger Phil Kessel, David Perron saw some time on the first power play unit.

Perron was positioned in the slot with the man advantage while Kessel was in the left circle and Crosby was in the right half wall. Additionally, defenseman Kris Letang was at center point while Nick Bonino was a net-front presence.

Perron sees the slot role as having greater importance than in previous seasons.

“I think in the past, the guy that was there was kind of standing still not getting a lot of pucks,” Perron said. “It's almost like you have the guy [at] net front, you have the guy in the slot. If he doesn't move, that's three guys on the outside against four guys. So you're on the power play but you're not really at the same time.”

“I think for me, I talk with [assistant coach] Rick Tocchet [who coordinates the power play] and I want him to be on me a lot, to make sure I'm moving, that I pop down low, that I come high, almost as high as a defenseman. Then I think he's got to make sure guys use that position because it creates a lot of relief for a guy like [Crosby]. He's got a lot of pressure from both sides, one defenseman, one forward. If he [passes] it to me, I can go to [Kessel] or I can go right back to him and give him an extra second. That's the way we're going to approach it for this year.

Johnstown game was “pretty cool”

Crosby said he was able to watch the Penguins-Lightning game in Johnstown on television Tuesday night, and deduced it was a “pretty cool” scene.

“It was a great event, looked like everyone had really nice time,” said Crosby. “Obviously it’s pretty cool to have a small town like that get a game. You see the turnout, not just the game, I saw some pictures outside the rink. It was a pretty cool thing. Sounds like they did a great job of hosting it.”

Johnston had said after the game it was his call to keep Crosby out of the lineup.