Penguins demote Jeffrey, Johnson - 01-22-10

Well that didn't last long.

A day after being recalled to replace injured forward Pascal Dupuis (head) and Max Talbot ("lower body"), Penguins forwards Dustin Jeffrey and Nick Johnson (right, with Ruslan Fedotenko) were demoted back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

In his NHL debut last night, Johnson, teamed mostly on the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko, had 12 shifts for 9:21 of ice time. He recorded a goal, was a minus-1 and had three shots on net.

Jeffrey, playing primarily on the fourth line, had 10 shifts for 8:35 of ice time. He is Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's top scorer with 43 points (13 goals, 30 assists) in 39 games.

EN Says: We really liked Johnson last night. He seemed to adjust well to the speed of the game, wasn't overwhelmed by Malkin's pace, and he just seemed to have a good sense of what was going on in most situations. He was burnt for the breakaway by Washington's Tomas Fleishmann that led to the game-winning goal, but in all fairness, he was playing out of position on defense for a teammate who was playing deep.

Jeffrey was hard to get a read on considering his chances were fairly limited.

(Photo: Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)