Injury Report: Guerin misses game due to “nagging” injury

Penguins injury report

*Enforcer Eric Godard went down with an apparent knee injury in the first period of tonight’s game and did not return.

Godard will be evaluated by team doctors on Tuesday when the team returns home, but there is some concern he could be down for a while.

If so, this would give Pittsburgh the opportunity to actually run 4 lines with 12 forwards and keep a 13th forward on the roster who can push for playing time.

No disrespect to Eric Godard, who is a great team guy and very well liked by his teammates but the role of enforcers like Eric Godard and Donald Brashear is being phased out of the game and it’s been evident by Godard getting 1-to-5 shifts per game over the past 2-3 weeks.

Latest on Bill Guerin, Max Talbot, Alex Goligoski, Chris Kunitz

First up on Bill Guerin….. He missed tonight’s game due to a nagging lower body injury that has been bothering since Christmas. You wouldn’t be able to tell based on his play but he’s going to be further evaluated on Tuesday. Doesn’t sound serious

*Alex Goligoski is expected to have an MRI tomorrow. Word out of Penguins camp is that it’s an upper body injury, believed to be a right shoulder but sometimes wrong info gets leaked on purpose, so I’m waiting for confirmation from a source in Goligoski’s camp. The extent of the injury is not known at this time.

He’ll get some tests done on Tuesday, just to check things out.

*Max Talbot skated briefly today. Talbot is hopeful to go through two full skates on Tuesday, Wednesday to get cleared for Thursday’s game.

*Winger Chris Kunitz will be in Philadelphia this week to meet with Dr. William Meyers who conducted the abdominal surgery. If all goes well, Kunitz is likely to be cleared to skate this week.

It has been nearly three weeks since the surgery.

*Meanwhile, Max Talbot (lower body) is progressing and is hopeful to play Thursday night.