Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Undisclosed Injury for Kunitz

An undisclosed injury kept Penguins forward Chris Kunitz out of the line-up on Tuesday night for the game against the Flyers. Kunitz was said to have been banged up in Saturday's game against the Sabres and since then, he wasn't able to step on the ice for practice with the team, which left little doubt that he wasn't going to dress for the game on Tuesday night. We'll have to consider him day-to-day for right now.

The removal of Kunitz of the line-up made the return of Evgeni Malkin a little bit easier, as the superstar Russian returned from his knee injury on the same night.

Even playing with the likes of Sidney Crosby this season, hasn't really supplemented Kunitz's numbers at all, as he is still scoring at just under two-thirds of a point-per-game this year. In 31 contests, Kunitz has only picked up 8 goals and 12 assists. You would almost expect to see a point per game for a regular winger for Crosby, so in that aspect, it is kind of disappointing. Nevertheless, his scoring pace wouldn't be bad on other teams and that would be what you would be measuring at the end of the day.

ImplicationsMissing out on Kunitz in the draft last night was Don D., who is currently sitting in 16th place after Tuesday night's action. Don is now 40 points out of the money and 20 points out of the top 10. Any team that sits in the bottom 10 only really desires to get in the top half about now in the season and healthy bodies are important.

Kunitz was a steal for Don in the draft, who took him in the 13th round, 256th overall. At the beginning of the week, Kunitz was ranked 93rd in pool scoring, which is a fantastic bargain.

Link to the Injury/News Page

No comments: