"He was evaluated this morning by our team doctors," head coach Mike Sullivan said. "This is something that he's been dealing with for a couple of weeks. The decision was made this morning to rest and see if that gives him an opportunity to heal. That's where we're at."
The Penguins will recall goaltender Tristan Jarry on an emergency basis from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League later this evening.
Jarry has played 11 games for WBS this year, posting a 4-5-2 record, 2.89 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage. He has been especially strong in his past two games, stopping 56 of 59 shots for a .949 save percentage.
Last year, Jarry played in 26 NHL games for Pittsburgh, with his 14 victories leading all league rookies. He and DeSmith teamed up to be the Penguins' tandem at different points throughout the 2017-18 season as Murray dealt with various injuries.
"He's played extremely well," Sullivan said of Jarry. "He had a really good training camp here. He's played extremely well since he's been in Wilkes-Barre. We believe these guys are capable guys.
"They both have NHL experience, they have both been in this position last year and they did a real good job for us when Matt was hurt last year. We trust these guys. We believe they can help us win games."
That's exactly with DeSmith has been doing for the Penguins. He has started six of the last seven games and is coming off a strong performance in Pittsburgh's 5-1 win over Dallas on Thursday.
In that game, the Penguins gave up a season-low 19 shots, but many of those were quality chances and DeSmith came up with clutch and timely saves. He's playing with plenty of confidence and just wants to keep building on that regardless of how the depth chart looks.
"You never know about these things as far as length of time or anything like that," DeSmith said. "I guess I sound like a broken record, but whenever I go in there, just (try to) give the team a chance to win and for me personally, I'm just going to try and keep doing what I always do, what I have been doing this whole year. It's been working out pretty well for me so far, so as long as I stay confident and keep it going out there and making saves that I should, I think our team is good enough that we'll win some games."
* Derek Grant was the only other player missing from the Penguins' Thanksgiving practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, and Sullivan said the forward was given a maintenance day. The team used the following workflow…
Guentzel-Crosby-Hornqvist
Pearson-Malkin-Kessel
Aston-Reese-Brassard-Simon
Rust-Sheahan-Sprong
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Riikola
Johnson, Oleksiak and Ruhwedel rotated.
