Marcus Pettersson was placed on long-term injured reserve with a lower-body injury yesterday.
At least he won’t be alone. He can hang out with Dmitry Kulikov, who is week-to-week with a lower-body injury, and Nick Bonino, who is recovering from a lacerated kidney. That’s not to mention that Jeff Petry is out day-to-day (upper body) and that Jan Rutta is also out (lower body.)
That’s four starting defensemen gone, which would be bad no matter what. But the situation is even worse for Pittsburgh than it might at first appear, because there are some significant gaps on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton blue line as well.