Stuart Suffers Broken Jaw

The Red Wings' Brad Stuart was the recipient of a late and high hit from the Flames' Tom Kostopoulos on Friday night, which resulted in Stuart having to leave the ice, bleeding from the face and it was later diagnosed that he had suffered a broken jaw on the play.  On Saturday morning, the news was that Stuart was scheduled to undergo surgery to repair the broken bone in Vancouver, where the Red Wings will play the Canucks, but no timetable will be set for his return until after the surgery.  I would think it fair to say 4-to-6 weeks, maybe less if he decides to adopt a face shield for a couple extra weeks, but the severity of the break will likely have an effect on how well he moves around as well.

Stuart has had a reasonable season with the Red Wings, thus far in the 2011 session, playing in all 41 games to this point, scoring 3 goals and adding 9 assists for 12 points, which has him ranked 355th in pool scoring, unofficially.  They may not be outstanding numbers, but they do have a solid feel to them, meaning that Stuart has been earning his keep through the first half of the season.  It will now be interesting to see how much of the season he'll actually miss with this injury.

In the draft, Stuart belongs to 18th place Dale C.'s team this year, a team who's defense has been rather suspect this season.  Dale's team has only notched 45 points from the blueline this season, which ranks tied for last in the pool in that department and now the loss of Stuart will only make that situation worse.  Otherwise, there really isn't too much more to report on, as the gap from top to bottom is now very large and everyone down below can almost be written off.

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