Malkin Out Three Weeks

According to the Penguins Report on their website this morning, the team is giving Evgeni Malkin some time off as a precaution to rest a strained shoulder. Malkin is expected to miss two or three weeks under this rest order and the team hopes that he'll come back at 100%. There was no exact indication as to when the injury occurred, but it was as recent as 10 days ago.

In my pool rankings, Malkin currently ranks 22nd with four goals and ten assists in 12 games, thus far with the Penguins, which isn't quite the pace we saw out of him last season, but if he's been rocking an injury for the past week or two, then there may be some substance to his lack of production. Holding Malkin out of the line-up in Pittsburgh will mean that the onus will be on Sidney Crosby to carry the Penguins a little bit more and it will likely give a bigger role to Jordan Staal as well.

In the Draft, this injury will just make a bad start to the season for Chris even worse. Chris currently sits in last place in the Draft, even after using the 3rd overall pick to get Malkin. He is already without his 2nd round pick, Jonathan Toews and his 3rd round pick, Eric Staal, has not scored at the pace that anyone would have expected. This is not the time for Chris to have an injury like this. It seems almost certain that he'll be using the 1st pick in the Waiver Draft in a month's time.

On the Sheet, there was a large decision to Malkin's Box 17 counterpart Alex Ovechkin, who took the selection poll handily, 31-10. Now, those 10 teams that have Malkin on the Sheet will have a decision to make, whether or not they use a trade for the two weeks missed, just so they can keep up to the other teams with Ovechkin in the line-up. Decisions, decisions.