By Brian Metzer
As I said in last night’s piece, there wasn’t a lot of ground broken following another loss by the Pittsburgh Penguins, but interesting moments were had in the locker room and coach’s presser. I shared the player comments last night, which included some venom from Matt Cooke, but somehow neglected to give you the Dan Bylsma comments.
The presser went something like this… Bylsma fielded two or three questions about the game before the room went silent. Local radio personality Mark Madden asked for the question mic and proceeded to ask, “Dan, I know that you don’t have any timeframes on Crosby or Letang, but are there any updates, because the silence is deafening?”
Though many in the room, including Bylsma, seemed a bit surprised by the question, as it is usually the type of thing that is reserved for morning skates or practice sessions (and he sort of gave an update earlier in the day), the coach proceeded to answer.
“Kris has seen progression in his rehab and he’s gotten back on the ice and skated now for three or four days and that’s a good sign for Kris,” said Bylsma. “Hopefully that means he’s going to be getting back to practicing at some point here in the near future.”
He had a lot less to say about Crosby.
“In terms of Sid he’s still light exercise off the ice and he hasn’t gone to a different stage in his rehab in terms of his symptoms.”
No new info gleaned there as we have all been told previously that there had been no change and that Crosby was still just doing light workouts off the ice.
The answer didn’t seem to get it done for the “super genius” which prompted a follow-up that specifically talked to the speculation that the players might be holding themselves out of the line-up.
“Has either taken an impact test lately, is this a doctor decision or an individual decision on their part?”
Bylsma coolly delivered an answer that provided little information – about Crosby anyway.
“The injury they have is symptom based, so you don’t progress until those symptoms go away,” said Bylsma. “Kris Letang is obviously on the ice and skating so he’s progressed a little bit and Sidney is still light exercise off the ice.”
The odd exchange did give some hope that Kris Letang could be on schedule for a post All-Star Weekend return and that he is likely symptom free since he is skating. It didn’t do the same for the Penguins’ captain.
In the case of Crosby, it essentially provided an “all is status quo, no change, still dealing with symptoms” kind of moment. Hopefully no news is good news in this situation…
Stay tuned for more later…
