*All stats accurate ahead of Monday night's games
Jim Rutherford sneezed into the phone and then excused himself to blow his nose. The Pittsburgh Penguins general manager said he was at home battling a cold. Hopefully, he said, it was just a 24-hour bug.
His team, however, has it far worse.
In the last two weeks or so, five players have come down with serious injuries. Forwards Nick Bonino (hand), Beau Bennett (upper body) and Eric Fehr (lower body) are not expected to be back in the lineup for at least another month, defenceman David Warsofsky is out indefinitely with a concussion and Evgeni Malkin has already missed two games because of something with his knee.