Pittsburgh Penguins: The Injury Bug is Biting Harder

The Pittsburgh Penguins injury list is already long, and with the loss of Ron Hainsey on Wednesday it has only been growing. Nobody thought it could get much worse for the Pens, until news broke out today that Evgeni Malkin will be out as well.

Evgeni Malkin won’t be available for tonight’s game, Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan announced on Friday ahead of the Penguins game against the New Jersey Devills.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Adding Insult to Injury

The Penguins injury list already includes key players like Patric Hornqvist, Carl Hagelin and Kris Letang. These are all key players whose on ice presence is irreplaceable. It’s already been hard to fill the holes they left to some extent. We’re getting wins without them, but we’d be a lot more dominant with them.

Now we lose Evgeni Malki, our second best forward after Sidney Crosby and one of the biggest contributors to the team game in and out.

He has been dominating the league like Crosby this season, piling 33 goals and 39 assists for 72 points in just 62 games this season. At this pace, he could have finished with up to 40 goals and 87 points by the season’s end. But now that’s questionable.

Working with what we have

Well we have to face the fact that Geno’s  out. On the bright side, it might not be for so long.

But if these injuries keep up, we’ll have to get our lineups shaken up a bit to suffice.

Looking at some of the players we can call up, there are some options for short-term replacements.

Thirty-one-year-old Kevin Porter currently has 40 points in 57 games for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He’s the top scoring centre on the team other than Jake Guentzel, who is already up playing with the Penguins. He can fill in fine for Malkin if need be.

Ron Hainsey is also out with injury after Wednesday’s game. I think Frank Corrado might be a smart choice for a call up in his relief.

Corrado played decently in Toronto, and he even seemed like he might have had a decent future with the team. Nevertheless, he didn’t work out well in Toronto, and one team’s trash is another team’s treasure. The Pens can utilize him well if they give him an opportunity. Now would be a perfect chance to do just that.

Moving Forward

The injury bug has been biting extra hard this year for the Pens. It’s prime time in the final stretch of the season and we really need to pull it together. It’s going to be hard if injuries keep persisting, but we have to hold through.

Despite all these injuries, our injury list will soon get shorter, so until then let’s look at the positives. We’re still holding on to a strong spot in the division, and we’re not far back behind a troubled Washington Capitals. We’ve been hot even though a majority of our team is injured, we can keep this rolling if we really pull it together. There’s no doubt in my mind that we can bounce back from these injuries.

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