MVN - Most Valuable Network

Crosby injured in Penguins’ lackluster 3-0 loss

It couldn’t have been a worse hockey night in Pittsburgh.

Not only did the Penguins play their worst hockey game in a very long time, but they may have lost their Captain for a significant period of time.

The Penguins were flat all night long, with absolutely no jump, and lost 3-0 to the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Quite frankly, that’s not nearly the story tonight.

Sidney Crosby suffered what’s being called the dreaded high ankle sprain at 7:37 of the first period when he slammed into the boards feet-first after being tangled up with Lightning defenseman Paul Ranger.  To be perfectly honest, it was an incredibly freak injury.  Crosby was not going at a high rate of speed into the boards, but it appeared that his right toe dug into the boards instead of having the skate parallel to the boards.

Crosby’s going to be examined on Saturday by Penguins’ doctors, but the early prognosis that was being reported by FSN Pittsburgh is four weeks.  They also report that Crosby is wearing a walking boot in the locker room after the game.

Four weeks is bad enough, if that holds true, but let’s not forget that Marc-Andre Fleury has a similar type of injury, and his prognosis was 6-8 weeks.  As it turns out, Fleury will be out at least eight weeks.  Max Talbot also had the high ankle sprain and is back in the lineup, but admittedly is going to battle it for the remainder of the season.

Crosby’s injury absolutely deflated the standing room only crowd, as well as his teammates.  The Penguins were playing poorly even before Crosby’s injury, but after Sid went off the ice, they were completely out of sync.

The Penguins’ lackluster performance was given yet another kick in the teeth by former Penguin mucker Andre Roy, who had a goal and two assists.  His three points were a career high.

As for Pens’ goalie Ty Conklin, many will say that his bubble burst tonight.  It was definitely not his best outing of the season, and he did give up three goals that arguably he’s been stopping during this winning streak.  The first goal was on a tap-in by Kyle Wanvig on a feed from Roy, the second on a soft backhander by Chris Gratton, and the third on a second wrister attempt that Conklin never saw by Roy.

These next few weeks are going to be absolutely huge for the Penguins.  They’ll have to suck it up and do without Crosby for as long as he’ll be out.  Perhaps this will make the Penguins playoff run less of a certainty and more of a possibility.

They’ll have no time to give it much thought, though.  The Penguins head to Montreal tonight for a matchup with the Habs on Saturday night.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.