Marty Straka's Law..

Marty Straka's law states: anyone who could get hurt--as strange or as unfortunate as possible--will get hurt.

Chalk Maxime Talbot (re-agging an age old high ankle sprain) and Petr Sykora (tweaked back) as the latest examples to this rule. That Marian Hossa (injured knee in his first game as a Penguin) has also been ruled out for Wednesday's game is no consolation.

For a team that lost well over 50 man games to injury for two former #1 overall picks (Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury of course) , well it's just insult to, dare we say, injury. The only plus side--well other than the emergence of Evgeni Malkin and Ty Conklin, is that the Pens minor depth, guys like Jeff Taffe, Tyler Kennedy and many more have stepped up in limited, yet important, appearances.

The opponent, the fading Buffalo Sabres have injuries of too; with two of their best and most experienced defensemen (Dmitri Kalinin and Jaroslav Spacek) on the shelf for the next little while.

The Penguins are going to have to dig down and get some production out some unusual suspects to take this game. Something tells us Michel Therrien is going to have no choice but stack the top line with Crosby, Malkin and Ryan Malone. If they don't come through at even strength, someone else who gets the chance to must capitalize to stay on pace with the New Jersey's, Montreal's and Ottawa's of the Eastern conference.

Luckily, after Wednesday the Pens are off until Sunday's NBC matinee against Philly....But then they start a trying stretch of 7 games in 12 days, which probably will determine the jockeying for positioning in the Eastern Conference playoff chance. It seems likely skilled forwards like Sykora and Hossa will be back to leave their impact on that; but taking it one day at a time, Buffalo clearly is focus #1....For one day at least.