Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta hospitalized after injury vs. Wild

Just that quickly, he went from harsh to hopeful.

Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta is expected to miss the next 3-4 weeks with an upper body injury after being hit into a bench door Tuesday night against the Minnesota Wild.

“We’ve got great leaders in this locker room who step up and say what needs to be said between periods. It’s a little early, here in November, to be talking about a playoff run but so far so good …”

Maata was injured after being through an open bench door by Minnesota’s Nino Niederreiter during the second period. The 21-year-old defenseman, limited to 20 games last season due to a cancer scare and shoulder surgery, laid on the ice for several minutes and did not return. Mired in a six-game losing streak, coach Mike Yeo said his team had “unraveled” and looked “completely lost, ” and his job security had become an increasingly hot topic.

“I think we changed momentum tonight and showed how we can play”, Malkin said.

“It’s unfortunate the whole situation”, Niederreiter said to Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

“[Sunday] was a bit different, having to go down for the day and then get ready to come back, ” Bulmer said.

The Penguins averaged just 2.06 goals through the first 17 games despite a plethora of offensive talent.

(He meant “frustrated”, not mad.) Still, with coach Mike Johnston’s seat speculatively starting to heat up, a few goals at home against the Wild would have made everybody feel a lot better.

After Granlund scored his first goal in more than a month to even the game, the Penguins responded with three straight goals before Jared Spurgeon stopped the bleeding.

They haven’t held a lead in regulation play in the first three games of this four game road trip – ahead only when they scored a sudden-death goal to beat Carolina in overtime last Thursday. If Malkin can start working that kind of magic on a regular basis, the Penguins could get pretty scary.

Power-play opportunities_Minnesota 2 of 6; Pittsburgh 2 of 6.

He set up David Perron for the game’s first goal 72 seconds after the opening faceoff and fed Beau Bennett for his first goal of the season, a power-play marker later in the period. The goal withstood a review to see if right winger Patric Hornqvist had interfered with Dubnyk. The players cared about each other, and they had not given up.

Malkin said the Penguins tweaked their power play, moving the puck more.

“We scored a couple of goals”.

Whatever the team said to clear the air must have worked. We’ll get at tab when the trainers come back and give me an evaluation right after practice.

Malkin struck again at 11:11 of the second period for a 4-1 Pittsburgh lead.