Hernia Surgery for Letang

If the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions, they will have to do so without their number one defenseman, Kristopher Letang.  The oft-injured blueliner, who has already been out of the lineup for well over a month now, has been diagnosed with a herniated disc in his neck and will undergo surgery to repair the problem.  This is a procedure that will need 4-to-6 months to recover from, which would put him back in action around the time of either training camp, all the way to the start of the regular season in October.

Of course, this ends Letang's regular season concludes with 41 games played this season, scoring 5 goals and 34 points.

For Mike, the loss of Letang was a fatal blow to his team, which was already hanging by a string at the end of February, when Letang was retroactively placed on the Injured Reserve.  Mike took Letang in the 2nd round, but he wasn't the worst pick in the round, as there were three picks worse, most of which due to injury.

Mike's team currently sits in 15th place and the highest he could expect to land is 14th, but he was already without Letang, so there's no real change to his projection.