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Wingnut

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Injury Update

It's that time of the week again, whooha time! This week we will talk a bit about the injury status of the players that participated in the Olympics. There is no more time for speculation on how the extra play will impact the team; it is here, in full force.

At the time of this writing there were ten major NHL players that are down and out after playing in the Olympics. Several of those players are gone for the remainder of the season. Now for some of these teams, these players are major contributors and their absence severely impacts their playoff hopes.

The injury list is almost as impressive as the original list of Olympians was; it's really a shame. First and most notable, Mario Lemieux, is done for the season. His absence pretty much squashed the Penguins hopes to go any further then the last 20 games of the regular season. Another team leader that hasn't played since returning from the games is Detroit's captain Steve Yzerman. He is out with a knee injury and is expected to miss at least another 2 weeks.

Now the Red Wings, who had the most players go to the games, came out fairly decent on the injury front. Besides Yzerman, the other injuries include Igor Larionov and Brendan Shanahan, who have a knee and broken finger respectively. Larionov has been out on the line-up but should return soon. The ever-tough Shanahan hasn't missed a shift and is playing and scoring as he was before the games

Keith Tkachuk, the St. Louis Blues leading scorer is out since the games ended with a deep thigh bruise and is expected to be out another week. The Blues also lost another former Olympian to an injury obtained this week; Doug Weight is out indefinitely with a ligament sprain in the knee and a sprained pelvis. I'm not sure how many of you have ever had a pelvis injury, but they are very painful and take a great deal of time to heal.

Curtis Joseph, the goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs broke his hand in his first game in net after the games. It was a fluke incident when Joseph's hand got caught in the webbing of the net and was broke as he tried to free his hand from the net. Not exactly an incident you can tie to the games … or, is this more of an Olympic curse?

Time will again tell the tale of the true impact and may actually become a scapegoat for some teams and players. One thing is for sure, with only 20 games left in the season and the trade deadline looming close, the rest of the season will be filled with hard fought battles and great games.

Till next week, Enjoy!

Wingnut