Greene cleared medically to practice, play in games; Rupp waits

Devils defenseman Andy Greene, who has been out since Oct, 29 with a broken right hand, said he received clearance for the doctor Tuesday to take part in full-contact practices and play in games. Now, it's just a matter of him getting back his game sharpness.

"Conditioning-wise, I'm fine," he said. "I've been skating for the last three weeks and skating hard. Now, it's going to be doing some battle drills in practice and just interacting with, taking passes from teammates and stuff like that. But, conditioning-wise, my legs are fine and everything is fine. Now, it's getting ready for game-like situations."

Greene was injured six weeks ago today. Today's optional morning skate was his first opportunity to practice with his teammates since then. He said he had been shooting and handling the puck for about a week and a half, but this was the next step up. 

"It wasn't bad," he said. "It felt good to finally be out there with the guys on the team. I've been skating by myself for quite a while now and I thought it went pretty well for the first day of handling pucks from other guys and things like that."

Greene said he will take part in Thursday's full practice with the team. He wore a piece of molded plastic on the back of his hand, which he has been wearing since he started skating, but wasn't sure if he will have to continue wearing it.

"I forgot to ask (the doctor) yesterday because I was too excited," he said. "We called him this morning and didn't hear back, so I'm just wearing it until I hear otherwise."

Greene had a plate and "five or six screws" inserted in his hand that will remain there as long as it doesn't bother him. He said his hand does not bother him at all when he shoots or passes.

He said he had to wait for "the bone to calcify" before he was cleared for full-contact practices.

"(The doctor) said when it happened it will probably be four to six weeks and it happened six weeks ago today," he said.

It's unclear how much more time Greene will miss, but he won't play tonight against Pittsburgh and it appears doubtful he'll play in the back-to-back home games against the Rangers and Buffalo on Friday and Saturday.

Greene was playing well before he was injured, In fact, he had a career-high three assists after he broke his hand when he was hit by a shot from Toronto's Pavel Kubina in the first period of a 6-5 shootout loss to the Maple Leafs.

"You can't control those things," Greene said. "You've got to take whatever it gives you. I've been working real hard here to get back where I was hopefully and just be as best prepared as I can."

***

Left wing Mike Rupp will be a healthy scratch for the second game in a row and said he has not heard anything from Devils coach Brent Sutter about when he might get back in the lineup. He's trying to maintain a positive attitude though he is clearly disappointed in not playing.

"I don't have any other choice," Rupp said. 'I'm not going to let this take me out of how I feel. I feel good. I feel good about our hockey club. We're winning games and I'm confident I can help out, so I'm not going to [complain]."

Rupp caught a skate in a rutt during the morning skate and said he felt something in his groin "just for a moment, but it was fine after that. It's actually been a kind of lingering thing. If I open up, it kind of grabs for a minute. But it's been getting a lot better in the last couple of weeks."

***

With the Devils getting relatively healthy, they are facing a Penguins' team tonight that is far more beat up than them. The Pens are missing No. 1 goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (lower body) and defensemen Sergei Gonchar (left shoulder), Ryan Whitney (left foot), Hal Gil (left shoulder) and Philippe Boucher (undisclosed), center Mike Zigomanis (undisclosed) and right wing Tyler Kennedy (knee) because of injuries.

Given the Penguins' extensive injuries on defense, the Devils need to put pressure on the Penguins in their end to take advantage of that. The Devils spent much of the first two periods of the teams' last meeting on Nov. 29 in their own end.

***

Defenseman Sheldon Brookbank will be the Devils' other healthy scratch tonight. Here's their lineup and expected line combinations and defense pairs.

Forwards: Zach Parise-Travis Zajac-Jamie Langenbrunner; Patrik Elias-Dainius Zubrus-Brian Gionta; Jay Pandolfo-John Madden-Brian Rolston; Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond-Bobby Holik-David Clarkson.

Defensemen: Bryce Salvador-Paul Martin; Colin White-Johnny Oduya; Mike Mottau-Jay Leach.

Goaltender: Scott Clemmensen.

Healthy scratches: LW Mike Rupp, D Sheldon Brookbank.

Injured; G Martin Brodeur (torn left biceps tendon), D Andy Greene (broken right hand).

Comments

[Sauce from the Swamp]

It is great we are finally healthy(with the exeception of Marty)....
Watch out, The Devils are about to make some noise now that we have our full team back...

[Jeff]

Sutter seems to let these guys have 2-4 full practices before cracking the lineup again.

[Tom Gulitti]

That's probably about right. He'd have only one full practice before Friday's game, so I doubt we'll see him play until next Tuesday in Toronto at the earliest.

[Rico Suave]

rolston and holik will be getting better with each game. i'm still curious to see where sutter plays rolston in the upcoming weeks. things are really looking up for us....

this is a huge divisional week for us. not only are these key points for the division, we will be turning more heads as legite contenders.

[Mark]

This sounds great. Hopefully Greene can pick up were he left off. I just really want to beat the Rags...

[Pearl Jammed]

Devils fans that are going tonight... DON'T FORGET YOUR TOYS!!!!

this is great news for Greene, but i am still scratching my head a little as to why Rupp isn't playing

[devscupchamps]

The Rupp situation still doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I'm very happy about Greene coming back and I just hope he is put back in there when he's ready. These next two games are critical ones for this club. We need to beat the pens and rags in order to make a statement and for obvious divisional reasons. It will be hard to believe this team has turned to corner until they beat the rags, especially.

[Brenda]

OK you guys that don't have the time to go to a store for a toy for tonights game. Run by a Hess Station for a truck....Boys can't wait to get their hands on them

This is not a plug for Hess.. it's a plug for boys we have three that have a hard time waiting for them on Christmas morning.

[JohnnyB]

Bring back Anssi!

[Guy]

When Greene comes back, what will become of Brookbank? Minors I hope.

[HBK27]

TG - Did you just forget to mention Vrana as a healthy scratch or did I miss something with him?

[mikeford]

Vrana is still in Lowell on a conditioning assignment.

Also as for Brookbank, please get him off this team and out of this organization. Leach, Salmela and Greene all represent enormous upgrades over him.

[Tom Gulitti]

You're right. Vrana is technically a healthy scratch, but, because he's on a conditioning assignment in Lowell, I left him off.

[Jeff]

Vrana is still on his conditioning stint with Lowell.

[HBK27]

Thanks - I totally forgot about the conditioning stint for Vrana...wasn't trying to catch you on a technicality TG ;)

[Falcone]

Good to hear about Greeney, hopefully having him run point on one of the pp units will help. I'm still confused about Ruppy as well. PL3 brings nothing to the table.

TG- What's your thought as to why Ruppy isn't playing?

[Rico Suave]

PL3 is a good move on the pens to bang up some players and slow them down. even more so than that, he is a great match up to handle their big boy gill (too bad he just got injuried and won't be playing).

this should be the last day of pl3, rupp plays particularly well against the rangers and now sutter just added plenty of fuel to the fire. expect a huge game from him friday.

[Puckster]

Big game tonight. (Seems like I say that every game). Great news about Greene though we probably won't see him in a game until next week.

[Morgan]

I was looking to see how Vrana was doing down in Lowell, and so far not so much. What jumped out at me was Frazee's numbers. GAA 1.98 and a .940 Save Percentage. Not too shabby.

[Puckster]

Yeah, Frazee's stats since coming up to Lowell have been amazing. I haven't been able to see him play at all, but on paper he's looked good there. If I'm not mistaken I thought I heard somewhere he had a terrible year last year, so there was some concern about his development. This is a positive sign.

[Craigwell]

I bet Rupper's 'scratch' is because Lou and the coaching staff knows full well that he's hurting a bit, never mind how well he's playing.

You have to imagine that the Coaching staff keeps such an eye on these guys, not to mention the training staff - that they can see what you dont even want to admit to yourself -

Rupper's sitting, he's pissed, and once he cracks the lineup feeling a little better, he's gonna tear it up with Bobby and David.

Watch out for this 4-line monster of a team up to Christmas and after..

[modnarm]

i'm pumped for this team. A Solid lineup of players that are all in synch with each other. You can't ask for more.

And Pittsburgh is without half of their defense! We undoubtably should skate through them and win this game 4-3!

[frankied]

Yeah Puckster... Frazee was horrible last year in college as he lost his starting gig to a freshman. He was known to lose focus often and even gave up a goal from center ice.

[Pearl Jammed]

Very good call Craigwell... i bet your right!

[JJ]

Geez, if we skate through them like we did earlier in the season 4-3 would be a BAD game. I'll take 2-0, 3-1. I want to send them a message that they are gonna have trouble with us even without Marty, send the league that message for that matter.