Bergeron Goes Down

The Bruins have not confirmed it yet, but the early reports on the thumb of Patrice Bergeron may cost him 2-to-6 weeks of time on the shelf after taking a shot off the hand from his own teammate last night in the game against the Rangers. Bergeron is scheduled to have an appointment with a hand specialist in the Boston area, but even that report doesn't sound terribly promising.

Of course, the debate has already started to rage on who should replace him on the Canadian Olympic roster, even despite the fact that he could be back before too long. I suppose the final report should get that debate going.

In 41 games this season with the Bruins, Bergeron has scored 11 goals and added 20 assists, but has been regaled as one of the best two-way forwards in the Eastern Conference, which has likely earned him his spot on Canada's team for February.

At the beginning of the week, Bergeron was ranked 72nd in the league pool scoring, which is pretty good, especially after an injury-riddled year in 2009, where he finished 226th. Bergeron could very well be a guy that only misses a couple weeks, which shouldn't hurt his rank too much and he should be ready, but its good to be sure, which is why he's going to the specialist.

This could be a minor blow or a major blow to the Draft hopes of Ryan in the pool. Ryan currently sits in 8th spot in the standings, 26 points out of the money, so you know he's desperately wishing that the injury is not major. I'm sure he doesn't want to make a trade for him at the Waiver Draft next week, so the news has to be good. He'll miss out on the next two weeks by the looks of things, but will he have to miss another week or substitute him for someone else that can get injured right away?

Bergeron's 2009 injury did him a favour in the Sheet pool, as it made him one of the more popular picks, because of his injury likelihood, he fell down into Box 24, where he was taken 31 times. How much panic will commence this week/weekend in the trade department? I suppose it all depends on how long he's out. Stay tuned...