The Pittsburgh Penguins injury woes continue as the team lost another key player Saturday as the team announced that defenseman Brian Dumoulin had surgery Sunday to repair lacerated tendons in his left ankle and will miss a minimum of eight weeks. Dumoulin was injured within the first minute of Saturday’s game against the St. Louis Blues when he got tangled up with Blues forward Zach Sanford, who fell on Dumoulin’s leg. He never returned to the ice after having logged just 35 seconds of ice time.
The injury is just another devastating hit after another. The team have already had to deal with injury issues to many of their star players, including Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby. Malkin missed 11 games early in the season with a lower-body injury and within days of returning, Letang went down with a lower-body injury that sidelined him for eight games as well. Crosby underwent core muscle surgery on Nov. 14 and isn’t expected back until at least January. The team also has a number of other key players on injured players, including Justin Schultz, Nick Bjugstad and Bryan Rust.
Dumoulin is second on the team in minutes played as he is averaging 21:04 of ice time and his defensive prowess is evident in his plus-17 rating. The team will likely lean more heavily on rookie John Marino and veteran Jack Johnson to play bigger roles while Dumoulin is out.
Not sure the Penguins are going to be able to keep pace with these injuries. Doumolin is a rock on defense.
Any other team being subjected to this much injury carnage would, in all likelihood, be looking to win the next draft lottery. These Pens are amazingly resilient, but you’d think at some point there would be some crumbling. Yet, we haven’t really seen it. Testament to Coach Sully & Sid, that’s for sure… Even gimped up, I have no doubt Sid’s doing his part to keep the train on the rails…