DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

No one at the Penguins’ camp should have more eyes upon him than Patric Hornqvist. He was the primary acquisition in the James Neal trade, he’ll be skating on a line with Evgeni Malkin — assuming the latter’s whereabouts are ever made known — and he’ll be expected almost singlehandedly to address the team’s most glaring shortcoming: He’ll actually go to the net.

Spent a few minutes with Hornqvist this morning after practice at Consol, and I hope you enjoy getting to know him a bit better as much as I did:

As a bit of a bonus, here’s Mike Johnston answering my question about what makes a forward, including Hornqvist, want to go to the net. Quality reply.

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Simon Despres will be one of the Penguins’ spotlight players in this training camp that formally pushed off Friday morning with the first practices at Consol Energy Center. I spoke with Despres about the pressure to finally step up into a full-time role, about being buried by the previous coaching staff and about Mario Lemieux’s remarks to me about Despres earlier this summer:

And if you missed it, here was my Penguins training camp preview column.

There will be more about the first on-ice day of camp later this afternoon.