Another Penguin injured; what does McKee’s absence and Gonchar’s return mean?

It was bitterly ironic that on the day it was announced that shot-blocking defenceman Jay McKee would miss two to four weeks with a finger infection, the Penguins' official website featured an infection prevention advertisement next to the McKee story.

Another day, another injury.  Another Pittsburgh Penguin has been forced to the sidelines with an injury.  The latest unfortunate player is defenceman Jay McKee, who will miss the next two to four weeks due to … an infected finger, as reported by the team’s official website.  McKee has been injury prone in recent seasons of his fourteen-year NHL career.  He has played at least seventy games in a season only once in the past six completed seasons before 2009-10.  That was 2005-06 when he played seventy-five games in his last campaign as a Buffalo Sabre.  Last year, he missed thirteen games with St. Louis.

Amazingly, McKee is the fifth defenceman who played on opening night to be sidelined.  Mark Eaton, by default, wins the Penguins’ Defence Survivor challenge.  The loss of McKee will be costly from a defensive perspective as he was tied for the league lead in blocked shots with sixty-nine entering last night’s games.  He had played in every one of Pittsburgh’s first twenty-one games this season.

On a more welcome note, the Penguins announced that forward Maxime Talbot, hero of last spring’s Game Seven Stanley Cup Final victory at Detroit, will make his 2009-10 debut tonight after off-season shoulder surgery.  Also, defenceman Sergei Gonchar will play for the first time since breaking his left wrist at home against St. Louis twelve games ago, on October 20.  Gonchar’s presence will be a big boost to the Penguins’ depleted defence as he not only is the undisputed power-play quarterback, but as a trusted defender, logs heavy minutes in even-strength and shorthanded situations.

The Penguins tonight begin a three-game road trip that will see them play Ottawa, Atlanta and Florida before returning home next Wednesday to host Montreal.  In terms of goals allowed per game, the league ranking of the Senators, Thrashers, Panthers and Canadiens are 19th, 18th, 26th and 21st respectively.  With four teams in the lower-half of the NHL at keeping the puck out of the net, the door is open for the Penguins, with Gonchar and Talbot back to fortify the offence, to take advantage of this weaker short-term schedule.

However, I suspect that the ability of the Penguins to stop the opposition from scoring will also change due to the loss of McKee.  While team defence is a composite of the efforts of all six blueliners, backchecking forwards and the goaltender, McKee already has shown he is an especially valuable commodity to Pittsburgh.  His contributions as a shot-blocking specialist and stay-at-home defender cannot be underestimated.  He fills up shooting lanes, frustrating opposition forwards by placing his body in the way of shot after shot.  Indeed, a lot of his injuries previous to joining Pittsbugh were as a direct result of blocking shots.  Also, he has been averaging nearly three minutes of penalty kill ice time per game this year.  Clearly, McKee has been a big reason why the Penguins rank ninth in the league in penalty kill percentage and fourth in terms of fewest shots allowed.

In closing, it will be interesting to see if the Penguins style of play naturally evolves into a more wide open style in the second half of November.  With a young, inexperienced defence corps missing its premier shot-blocker and the return of their top power-play blueliner plus a top six forward, the Penguins may score more, but also give up a few more in the short term.