Pittsburgh Penguins Rank in Top Five of All-Star Voting at All Positions by Sonny Sachdeva

The Pittsburgh Penguins have had some horrible luck recently when it comes to injuries, having already lost forwards Pascal Dupuis, Beau Bennett, Brandon Sutter, Steve Downie, and Craig Adams as well as defensemen Paul Martin, Christian Ehrhoff, Olli Maatta, and Robert Bortuzzo.

It looks like the Pens’ injury woes are about to get even worse, as forward Blake Comeau, who left the team’s last game against Florida and did not return, will be forced to miss some time with what appears to be a wrist injury.

The Penguins placed Comeau on injured reserve today (making him the tenth player to join the IR list), calling up Dominik Uher from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL to replace him.

As per Josh Yohe of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the indication from those within the Pens’ locker room is that Comeau’s injury looked to be serious.

No word from Pens regarding Comeau injury. Reaction from players in locker room after the game last night indicates the news isn't good. — Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_Trib) December 23, 2014

The news is another in a series of serious blows to the Penguins’ offense. While the team still boasts a strong powerplay consisting of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang, the calibre of talent currently in the lineup drops off significantly from there.

Crosby, Kunitz, and Hornqvist give the Pens a strong first line, but with Sutter and Comeau out, Malkin’s second line has been filled up by Nick Spaling and Bryan Rust.

Pittsburgh’s third line is still in somewhat decent shape with Marcel Goc, Rob Klinkhammer, and Bobby Farnham taking over the third trio duties, while the fourth has been a constantly rotating door of players from WBS.

The current iteration for tonight’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning will consist of Andrew Ebbett, Taylor Chorney, and Dominick Uher – certainly not the most intimidating line the Pens could throw out, but the best they have under the current circumstances.

Losing Comeau will be even harder to swallow as the forward as emerged as one of Pittsburgh’s best offseason additions, racking up 11 goals and 19 points in his first 32 games with the club (on pace for nearly 30 goals when projected over a full season).

The loss of Comeau, who’s also been one of the team’s most clutch players with 3 game-winning goals (tied for the team lead), will be a tough one to battle through for Pittsburgh, but they’ll get their first taste of said battle tonight against the Lightning.

UPDATE: Blake Comeau will miss “several weeks”, per head coach Mike Johnston

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