It looked as if the Penguins had a bout of bitter beer face spreading across the Mellon Arena locker room after practice yesterday. Instead, it was a shared reaction to questions about what happened to Florida's Richard Zednik.

"It's pretty creepy," defenseman Rob Scuderi said.

Zednik was accidentally clipped in the neck by the skate of teammate Olli Jokinen in a game Sunday night in Buffalo. With Zednik's carotid artery cut, he bled profusely and required emergency care and surgery.

Yesterday, he was upgraded to good condition in a Buffalo hospital, and one surgeon was quoted as saying Zednik was "very lucky."

"You think about his family. You think about, 'That could have been me.' " Penguins forward Maxime Talbot said.

Scuderi witnessed a similar incident involving a teammate when he and injured Penguins defenseman Mark Eaton played junior hockey together in New York.

"We were all leaning over the bench looking at the play over there, but someone fell over here and his skate came up," Scuderi said.

Penguins players noted that because life-threatening injuries from skate blades are rare -- the last time it happened in the NHL was in 1989, involving Buffalo goaltender Clint Malarchuk -- the league probably won't mandate neck protection as part of players' equipment.

Coach Michel Therrien agreed, but he is adamant that Zednik's injury should serve as a catalyst to require neck protection for younger players in the United States. His son, Charles, 14, plays hockey and is not required to wear a neck guard.

"That should be mandated by USA Hockey," Therrien said. "I don't know how it is across [all of] Canada, but when I spent time in a rink in Quebec, you had no choice; you had to use the neck protector. I hope it's going to open up a debate, open up the eyes of some people that the No. 1 thing we want is for the young players to have fun with their game, but at the same time you've got to be well protected.

"There's no doctor at young kids' games, so that young kid might die right there. It's scary to think about it."

Early in practice, defenseman Ryan Whitney shot several pucks from the left hash mark in what looked like slow motion, as if he was purposely taking a lot off his wrist shot.

In fact, he was using a heavy stick, which looks like a normal hockey stick but weighs 5¹/₂ pounds. The stick, donated to the team by winger Ryan Malone and bearing his name and number, usually stands alone in a corner of the locker room.

Lately, Whitney said, more and more Penguins are using it. The idea is similar to a baseball player swinging a weighted bat on deck.

"We shoot some pucks with it and then you get your regular stick and it feels like you could shoot it much harder because it feels so light," Whitney said. "Other guys, before the game, they will hold it for a couple minutes."

Center Sidney Crosby, recovering from a high ankle sprain, continues to practice in a no-contact yellow jersey. He said his right ankle is improving. ... Because of potential traffic problems due to closures on Centre Avenue related to the demolition of the former St. Francis Central Hospital, the Penguins will open the Mellon Arena gates a half-hour earlier than usual -- at 6 tonight -- for their game against Boston. ... Most NHL players have spent years getting to rinks in bad weather, so none of the Penguins was late for practice despite difficult road conditions.