When it comes to the injury bug and the Detroit Red Wings, the beat goes on with the news that star forward Pavel Datsyuk will miss at least the next four weeks with a second-degree right shoulder separation.
Datsyuk injured his shoulder Monday night in the Wings' 2-1 preseason victory in Pittsburgh, on a jarring hit from Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi.
At the time, the Wings and Datsyuk believed that the injury was minor and thought that the nifty center would officially be listed as day-to-day, however, an MRI done today, revealed the severity of the injury.
"He's out four weeks, give or take. It might be a little less, it might be a little more," Detroit GM Ken Holland said. "We won't know until we get down the road and see how the healing process is going.
"I certainly wasn't going into the year expecting we wouldn't have injuries. At the same time, I'm hoping we don't have an extended amount of injuries like we did last year.
"A week into camp and we've lost (Anthony) Mantha and Pav. We've been hit in the early going. The good news is its training camp."
Holland pointed out that the Wings regular-season opener is still two weeks away (October 9th versus Boston), which means that most of Datsyuk's recovery time will occur while the Wings are still playing preseason games.
"We still got Z (Henrik Zetterberg), (Stephen) Weiss, (Riley) Sheahan, (Joakim) Andersson and (Luke) Glendening in the middle," Holland said. "(Darren) Helm and Mule (Johan Franzen) can play there, too.
"Mike Babcock has some options."
In other injury news, Holland doesn't expect Helm (broken nose) or defenseman Ryan Sproul (soreness from a hit from behind) to be in the lineup until this coming Saturday (versus Boston) or next Monday (versus Toronto) at the earliest.
As far as Daniel Alfredsson, Holland indicated that he wasn't at the Joe today, but trainer Piet Van Zant told him that Alfredsson said his back is feeling better and he expects to see him at the Joe on Thursday.
