PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Penguins put five players on injured reserve as it finalized its opening day roster for the game Wednesday in Philadelphia.
Four of the five on IR are typical starters
- Forward Bryan Rust—coming off a career-high 65 points with 29 goals and played on Sidney Crosby’s line
- Forward Ben Kindel—the 19-year-old scored 17 goals with 18 assists as a rookie
- Forward Blake Lizotte—key member of one of the best 4th lines in the conference
- Forward Justin Brazeau—coming off a career-high 17 goals and 17 assists
- Defenseman Ryan Graves—spent most of last season in the AHL
Several others are on the non-roster injured list including young forward Tristan Broz.
Forward Andrei Kuzmenko is also out to start the season as he is with his family following the death of his father in Russia.
There are the usual names on the roster, the newcomer forwards David Gustafsson, Hendrix Lapierre, Nick Robertson with part-time Pens last year Filip Hallander, Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty. They join Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Rickard Rakell, Egor Chinakhov, Connor Dewar, Tommy Novak and Elmer Soderblom.
New defensemen are Declan Carlile, Kaedan Korczak and Trevor van Riemsdyk joining Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson, Sam Girard and Ilya Solovyov.
After the opener in Philadelphia, Pens play the first home game Saturday against Montreal.
