Pens move Weber to taxi squad, Czuczman to AHL as health returns

As the Penguins continue to make strides towards health, they shuffled some players down the roster today. Yannick Weber has been bumped from the 23-player roster to the taxi squad. Kevin Czuczman is going from the taxi squad down to the AHL.

From the team:

The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-assigned defenseman Kevin Czuczman to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League and goaltender Alex D’Orio to the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL, it was announced today by general manager Ron Hextall.

Defenseman Yannick Weber has been re-assigned to the taxi squad.

Czuczman, 30, has played two games for Pittsburgh this season, the first coming on Jan. 28 against Boston and the other against the New York Rangers on Feb, 1. He spent the majority of the 2019-20 season with WBS and in 174 career games with WBS, he has notched 10 goals, 56 assists and 66 points.

As mentioned, goalie Alex D’Orio, who hasn’t played a game yet this season and has been on the practice squad all season is going to Wheeling to get some work in.

The defensemen going down starts to clear room for Juuso Riikola. Riikola went through a full practice today cleared for contact. That’s the good news. The bad news for him personally is he figures to slot back in eighth on the depth chart of eight defensemen when he gets back, with Brian Dumoulin still on the horizon to return as well.

The better news for the Pens is the high tide of defensemen injuries that once had them relying on players like Czuczman and Weber is receding fairly quickly to just become a bad memory of a time of massive injuries.