Crosby sick, Glencross trending down, Jurco is intriguing, Hartnell down and more…

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The Penguins got some reinforcements back last night with both Kris Letang and Patric Hornqvist returning to the lineup. Neither one was eased back with Letang skating 27:16 and Hornqvist 18:40. Letang scored the game-winner.

Of course, the Penguins being cursed with injury woes, as those two returned, Sidney Crosby was forced out of the lineup due to illness. The Penguins are saying that it's not the mumps but really guys? Look at that face. It's not mumps? I actually don't care what the nature of Crosby's illness is. I'm just annoyed with how disingenuous teams are about injuries.

With Crosby out the Penguins went with two defensemen on the top power play unit. Letang reclaimed one of the spots, while Paul Martin was granted the other spot. Martin could be worth snagging for a spot start tonight's game against Columbus if you have an opening.

Rob Klinkhammer scored his first goal as a Penguin. He did so in just 11 minutes of ice time. He simply hasn't received a top-six role since coming over from Arizona. Consider him irrelevant in all but the deepest of leagues unless something changes here.

With Marc-Andre Fleury going last night, you can expect Tomas Greiss to get the start tonight for Pittsburgh.

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It looks like it's time to jump off of Curtis Glencross. He has scored 17 points in the last 20 games but has just one in his last three. More importantly, Glencross's minutes have dried up in the past three games having skated just 13:31, 12:27 and 14:09 in each game respectively. That's down about 4-5 minutes per game from the previous 18 where he hadn't skated less than 17:21 in any one contest.

Glencross has been shuffled down the lineup skating fewer minutes with Sean Monahan and instead having Josh Jooris as his main centerman. Glencross did skate 4:52 on the power play last night, many of those minutes with Monahan but didn't see much time on the Flames' top unit with Johnny Gaudreau and Jiri Hudler.

Mason Raymond has been held scoreless in three games since returning to the lineup but he has been stealing some of those Monahan minutes from Glencross. The other "criminal" here is Joe Colborne who has one point in two games since returning himself.

It is worth debating how beholden Bob Hartley will be to these lineup changes given the losing skid his team is now on. He may look to return to a state of normalcy reuniting Monahan and Glencross. We will have to monitor this situation closely.

Definitely shop Glencross around now. You probably won't find many believers but you'd rather get out now than be left holding the bag.

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Stephen Weiss has no luck. He left last night's contest after an awkward hit from Sean Bergenheim. It is believed to be a separated shoulder, which means we are looking at a couple of weeks here at least.

Give Tomas Jurco a look. He's not as hot as he was a week ago but his minutes are up. He has been skating with Henrik Zetterberg and Gustav Nyquist at evens and on the top power play unit. Jurco skated just 14:02 last night but just a few weeks ago he was skating less than 10 minutes on your average night so this is a step up. Most importantly, 4:02 of his minutes came on the power play. Look for production if this continues.

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