After last night's 3-2 gimmick loss to the Rangers you can add Tyler Kennedy and Mike Zigomanis to the band of injured players quickly piling up on the Pens...And apparantely Phillipe Boucher is on the IR now as well. Add that to franchise goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and top defensemen Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney.
Both injuries are undisclosed, but rumor has it Mr. Kennedy has already flown back to Pittsburgh to have a leg examined and could miss several weeks. Zigomanis is listed as "probable" so perhaps he will be able to win faceoffs tonight.
There will certainly be no empathy coming from the Carolina Hurricanes and old/new head coach Paul Maurice tonight, but hey, it's worth pointing out. Janne Pesonen and Chris Minard have gotten the call.
Tonight's projected lines, from the main site are:
Talbot-Crosby-Satan
Fedotenko-Malkin-Sykora
Dupuis-Staal-Cooke
Pesonen-Minard-Godard
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Minard and Pesonen have played and played well all season long (no one in the AHL has more goals than Minard so far). But why keep Pesonen on the 4th line? We can tell that Mike Therrien doesn't trust Pesonen, doesn't know him well enough to give him the added responsibility of playing much. It's something that pretty much all new players to Therrien have to do; prove themselves on the ice, especially defensively before more icetime is given.
Another wrinkle to watch: Kennedy was being used on the top power play. Who gets the call now to join Crosby, Malkin, Satan and Alex Goligoski? We'd bet Staal and Fedotenko are the likely choices.
Fedotenko's had a great game, a lot of effort out of him. The recent benchings and line-demotions seem to have upped his game in recent days, hopefully something he can continue.
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