Penguins goaltender Casey DeSmith was placed into the NHL’s protocols for covid-19. The team announced his status Monday afternoon.
He is the third member of the roster in protocols, joining forwards Brock McGinn and Bryan Rust who tested positive for the virus on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
Neither played in Saturday’s 3-2 road loss to the Dallas Stars.
In eight games this season, DeSmith has a 3-3-1 record, along with a 3.47 goals-against average, an .888 save percentage and one shutout. He has dressed for all 34 games of the Penguins’ campaign.
With DeSmith potentially unavailable for the foreseeable future, reserve goaltender Louis Domingue could be summoned from the taxi squad and serve as the backup to starting goaltender Tristan Jarry.
Domingue has dressed for two NHL games this season but has not played. In 10 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL) this season, Domingue has a 3-4-2 record, along with a 2.69 goals against average and a .918 save percentage.
As for Jarry, it would appear he could be in net for the remainder of the team’s road trip through the western portion of the United States. All stops in Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose and Las Vegas do not involve games on back-to-back days.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was coy when asked how DeSmith’s status might impact Jarry’s deployment while speaking with media Monday in Anaheim.
“Potentially, potentially not,” Sullivan said. “It hasn’t really changed our thought process. We’re going to take each game as it comes. We’ll make a decision as we go. We have a long-term game plan penciled in. But we put in pencil for a reason. We’ll take each game as it comes, and we’ll make decisions accordingly.”
