Patric Hornqvist and eight others set to rejoin Penguins as more camp scrimmages added

Good news on Monday for the Penguins, Patric Hornqvist and eight other players held out of all of training camp so far have been cleared. The team has given more details on future scrimmages, including one about to begin in less than an hour from this post on Monday.

From a team release:

The third and fourth scrimmages will now take place on Thursday, July 23 at 7:00 PM, and Saturday, July 25 at noon. These game-day simulations will feature a full three-period game with a stopped clock, and each team will have three forward lines and five defensemen.

Additionally, the nine Penguins players that were held out of training camp as a precaution have been cleared to re-join Phase 3.

Pittsburgh’s second team scrimmage will take place today at 11:00 AM at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. The scrimmage will follow the same rules as last Saturday’s contest, which featured two 25-minute running clock periods and teams that featured two lines of forwards and defensemen. The final five minutes of each period will focus on the Penguins’ power play and penalty kill. Coverage begins at 10:45 AM.

As a reminder, these events are closed to the public, but fans may watch via stream on four different platforms: pittsburghpenguins.com, the Penguins app, the team’s YouTube channel and Facebook, with Josh Getzoff and Phil Bourque providing commentary.

Shortly after this, the Pens leave for the NHL bubble in Toronto. Next week, on July 28th, they will play an exhibition game against Philadelphia before the qualification round of the NHL playoffs comes up starting on Saturday August 1st with Pittsburgh and the Montreal Canadiens.

But the great news out of this is that Hornqvist, Juuso Riikola and the seven other depth players that had secondary exposure to someone who had covid-19 have obviously met the criteria of negative tests to be cleared to return.