Blake Comeau May Play This Week
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan) — Penguins winger Blake Comeau participated in a full practice for the first time on Monday since injuring his wrist nearly nine weeks ago.
Despite just one practice today, and an off day for the team tomorrow, there is still a chance Comeau could play Wednesday against Detroit.
"I haven't talked to the trainers yet but I think he had a real good practice today," head coach Mike Johnston said. "The big thing for him was how he handled battles and checking situations but he seemed to be OK, I'm anxious to hear from the trainers and just see where he's at."
Johnston said Comeau will get some work in, on the ice with a few other guys tomorrow, and see how he feels from there. After weeks of practicing on his own, Comeau said he felt great and he's happy to be skating with his teammates again.
"It almost seems like you're at the rink doing rehab and skating early in the morning and they are doing their thing which is the part that sucks," Comeau said. "So it's nice to get back with the guys, just be part of the group and hopefully I'll be back as soon as possible."
In an effort to return as quickly as possible, Comeau made sure that he stayed as conditioned as possible while giving his wrist time to heal.
"There was a period where I wasn't allowed to skate, which kind of sucked, but once I did come back it was just skating with no pucks, which wasn't the best thing," Comeau said. "But that's just part of it, do the work while I was out so when I do come back my legs are feeling good."
Comeau said the big test for him at practice was doing battle drills, 1-on-1 play and drills that required holding the stick. He said everything felt good and the next step is just working on getting his timing back by practicing with the team and doing fast-paced drills.
"Anytime you miss that amount of time, especially at this time of the year, everyone's playing at a pretty high pace, so it was important for me to keep my legs in the best shape that I could," Comeau said. "Now it's just a matter of getting the timing down."
Comeau scored 11 goals and was averaging 15:44 minutes in the 32 games he played this season prior to the injury.
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