Injuries: Penguins, Lightning, Devils, Coyotes and Blues

On the Penguins …

  • Jenn Menendez of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Penguins Pascal Dupuis returned to practice yesterday. He’s been out with a lower-body injury since a week before the season started.

    “Felt good. Good step in the right direction,” said Dupuis. “As far as time frame, I’m a little bit under two weeks, right on the money. Starting to feel good. The process was to come back and skate with the team. It went pretty good.”

  • Eric Fehr, recovering from offseason elbow surgery, skated again with the team yesterday.
  • There is no update on Beau Bennett who has been out with an undisclosed injury since last week.

On the Lightning …

  • Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: Lightning’s Victor Hedman is day-to-day, but might be available soon as the team assigned defenseman Slater Koekkoek to the AHL. The Lightning didn’t practice yesterday, so more should be known when they return to the ice today.

On the Devils …

  • Tom Gulitti of The Record: Devils Travis Zajac returned to the lineup yesterday after missing Friday’s game with a lower-body injury.
  • Winger Tuomo Ruutu missed yesterday’s game with an unspecified injury.
  • Defenseman Jon Merrill missed yesterday’s game due to an illness.
  • Winger Patrik Elias “continues to make progress” according to head coach John Hynes. There is still no timetable.

    “He’s skating more and more and things look like they’re going in the right direction,” Hynes said. “Time frame-wise, not yet, but it’s definitely going in the right direction as of now.”

On the Coyotes …

  • Craig Morgan of Arizona Sports: Coyotes Joe Vitale was undergoing tests yesterday on his upper-body injury. He will not travel with the team on their five-game road trip. Vitale returned to the lineup on Saturday and got into a fight with Bruins Kevan Miller. It looked like he was having issues with his jaw and eye while in the penalty box. He went to see the trainers and didn’t return to the game. GM Don Maloney said that it looks like he’ll be out for a while.

On the Blues …