Penguins coach Mike Sullivan on Wednesday morning considered it a “reasonable” chance winger Patric Hornqvist and defenseman Justin Schultz will dress in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final.

The Penguins host Ottawa on Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena with their season on the line. They hope to generate more goals than they did in a 2-1 loss in Game 6 on Tuesday that kept the series going. Hornqvist and Schultz help on that front.

Hornqvist, however, has not played since Game 1 because of an upper-body injury. He became a last-minute scratch after warm-ups in Game 2 and then was ruled out for Games 3 through 6. He did not travel to Ottawa for Tuesday's matchup.

Schultz, who suffered an upper-body injury in Game 2, went with the team for Game 6 but did not participate in the morning skate or warm-ups.

Chad Ruhwedel (concussion) and Tom Kuhnhackl (lower-body injury) also stayed in Pittsburgh to concentrate on rehabilitation.

Power-play debate

When Bobby Ryan scored on a one-timer from the left faceoff circle in the second period of Game 6, it snapped a streak of 29 consecutive failed power plays for the Senators. The skid covered the last five games of a second-round series with the Rangers and the first five games of the Penguins series.

Did the goal give Ottawa some special-teams momentum heading into Game 7?

Senators forward Bobby Ryan said yes.

“I don't want to say turning point but a building point for our offensive side of things,” he said. “We had better shots than mine earlier in that five-on-three. … It's amazing what not holding onto the puck will do. You just try to find a lane, try and find something.”

Penguins penalty killer Carter Rowney said no.

“I think our penalty kill's been really good,” he said. “They got a five-on-three there for, I think, a minute and a half. They've got some good players over there, and they were able to execute. I think our penalty kill's been good all series, and we're all confident in it.”

Lefties abound

With Schultz and Ruhwedel unavailable for Game 6, the Penguins again pieced together a defensive corps comprising only of lefties.

Sullivan struggled to recall an instance in his career where he lacked a lefty-righty defense pairing, but he figured it happened at some point during his days behind the bench. He also considered it a personnel quirk more than a lineup limitation.

“In a perfect world, we'd like to have lefty-righty (combinations) and have them on their strong sides,” Sullivan said. “I think it makes a defenseman's job in certain areas of the rink a little bit easier. But our guys have done a really good job as far as making the adjustments they need to make and their willingness to play the offside in order to help our team win. This group of defensemen, they do whatever we ask to try to help us win.”

One small improvement

Even after a night to sleep on it, the Penguins couldn't find many faults with their Game 6 performance, especially in the offensive zone, as a handful of players and Sullivan met with reporters at the team hotel Wednesday morning.

They far outclassed the Senators in shot attempts (75-46), shots (46-30) and high-danger scoring chances (15-4) as defined by Corsica.hockey.

The only improvement they'd like to make — other than scoring more than one goal, obviously — was a sentiment expressed by Evgeni Malkin right after the game and echoed by Bryan Rust in the morning.

“I think if we get a little more traffic to the net and get in (goalie Craig) Anderson's way a little bit more, I think that's kind of going to help us,” Rust said. “Maybe try to get one or two dirtier goals.”

Bill West and Jonathan Bombulie are Tribune-Review staff writers. Reach them at wwest@tribweb.com and jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BWest_Trib and @BombulieTrib.

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