The Penguins provided a Sidney Crosby update, and it wasn’t a good one. The Pens captain has been placed on injured reserve, with the team adding he will be out for a “minimum” of four weeks.
Crosby was injured in the Olympics, and reportedly was searching for a brace for his knee while taking an individual skate to see if he could play in the gold medal game. He was unable to play in that game and now will be out for a fairly significant amount of time.
NHL teams have recently started couching injury designations with terms like “minimum” or “re-evaluated” and given the fluid nature of injuries they haven’t been hard and fast rules. Take Bryan Rust, who at the beginning of the season was said to be out for a “minimum” of two weeks on 10/2, yet he returned to the lineup nine days later on October 11th. Similarly, Erik Karlsson was to be “re-evaluated” in two weeks time on January 13th, but was able to play again on January 22nd. Even recently, Kris Letang’s “minimum” four week injury from January 31st saw him return to the ice to skate two weeks later, he should beat that projection by a few days in the Pens’ first game back tomorrow with his removal from the IR today.
However, some cases aren’t always over-stated, slightly more than minimum announced time was needed for returns to the lineup on early season injuries the Pens had announced for Justin Brazeau, Noel Acciari and Tristan Jarry.
In any regard for the timeline, it will be difficult for the Penguins to move on for the foreseeable future without Crosby. Pittsburgh starts a stretch tomorrow for playing 12 games in the next 21 days and will play 15 games over the next four weeks, and 19 games in the next five weeks. They now look at facing the majority of the rest of their regular season (26 games remaining) without their leading scorer.
