Tuesday, February 22, 2011

An Update on Gaborik

It does appear that Marian Gaborik will be out of the Rangers line-up indefinitely, as the upper-body injury that he had suffered does appear to be a concussion.  Gaborik has not traveled with the team, as they have now left on a quick two game jaunt down into the Southeast Division, tonight in Carolina and then Friday night in Washington.  The injury was diagnosed on Sunday and it will be likely his first tests will happen then, likely before the afternoon tilt against the Lightning, but I have my doubts that he will be good to go.

With the Rangers currently holding a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference going into the week's worth of action, they will have to be careful with their sniper, as there could be a desire to rush him back into the line-up, for fears that they could fall out of the picture without him.

It hasn't been a typical scoring season for Gaborik, but in comparison, it is about right when it comes to the injuries and the number of games he's played this year.  Yes, Gaborik, one of my notable injury prone players,  has missed 14 games already this season, a couple with the flu and a shoulder injury that cost him 12 games early on in the year.  In 47 games played this year, he only has 17 goals and 21 assists for 38 points, which is well below the point-per-game average he generally carries.

Going into Tuesday's action, the Slovakian winger ranks 112th in pool scoring and he'll likely take a hit missing out on some action this week.  It's a real shame that he hasn't been able to find some consistency in his health.

ImplicationsAs I had mentioned in the post before this, Stuart G. is currently in a major battle with his brother Benson G. for the final money position in the draft and a monumental injury like this to one of his better scoring forwards could in fact be devastating, the longer the injury persists.

Link to the Injury/News Page

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