Pens recall O’Connor, Letang and Carter missing from practice

The Penguins were back on the ice on Monday in Cranberry to prepare for the week after getting back from the west coast.

There was a new face on the ice, with forward Drew O’Connor called up from Wilkes-Barre and Drake Cagguila returned back to the AHL.

O’Connor, who has been playing mostly center himself lately, was filling in at practice for Jeff Carter. Carter did not practice on Monday, after suffering an undisclosed lower body injury in Saturday night’s game in Seattle.

Defenseman Kris Letang was also absent from Monday’s on ice work. Here is how the Penguins were lining up:

Teddy Blueger was skating in a regular jersey (upgraded lately from a no contact jersey) but is ineligible to leave the long-term injury reserve list and play until Saturday at the earliest, which explains why he was lending a hand to round out the defensive numbers.

O’Connor has been red hot in the AHL lately, he started out somewhat slow with only two points in Wilkes-Barre’s first five games but really clicked in with a 2G+1A game on 10/26 and then chipped in another assist on 10/28.

We’ll see and add updates if coach Mike Sullivan adds any more detail about Carter (probably not) or Letang after practice. The Pens have a quick turnaround with two games coming up in two days this week on Tuesday-Wednesday, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for those veterans to heal up. We’ll see if they can make it back or will miss some time in the immediate future.

Update:

Letang is ill, Carter is being worked on for a day-to-day injury, that could be centered around his back.