5 Observations From First Week Of Penguins’ Training Camp

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins officially opened training camp for the 2024-25 season. And through three days, there has been a lot of action.

There has already been an injury, as forward Kevin Hayes went down in Friday’s practice with an upper-body injury and will miss the start of the regular season. There is a new coaching staff that is starting to make its mark on the team and the direction. And there are some young players already poised to make decisios tough for GM and POHO Kyle Dubas and company.

Here are five observations from the first three days of training camp.

Sidney Crosby: “It was pretty loud out there. There was a lot of stick banging, that sort of thing.”

Kris Letang: “You could feel it. The energy is through the roof.”

Bryan Rust: “The energy out there was great. It was contagious. [The coaches] were all very vocal, they were all banging their sticks, they were all trying to motivate guys, trying to get guys going.”

Evgeni Malkin: “This [Friday] is the second day. Really hard. But I like it. I feel fine.”

If there was one consistent theme throughout the first three days of camp – and something that seems as though it’s going to stick – it’s that new head coach Dan Muse and the rest of his staff are loud. Very, very loud. 

Muse barely had a voice left for all three media availabilities at the end of each day. Assistant coach Mike Stothers was yelling left and right and banging sticks up against the glass not-so-lightly, halfway frightening the fans in attendance on the other side. Muse even joked Saturday that we all may have to play a guessing game at the beginning of every practice to predict how many sticks Stothers will break that day.

But the “loudness” and vocality of practice isn’t for naught. There is a noticeable intensity and energy that has, honestly, been a bit lacking over the last several years of camp. The pace is constantly pushed. Guys are tired. The coaching staff is making them work and work very hard.

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