The fear that every general manager who sends a player to a major tournament is now a reality for Dean Lombardi and the Los Angeles Kings.
It was announced by Lombardi on Monday that
Marian Gaborik, one of the team's projected top-line wingers, will be out eight weeks with a foot injury suffered during Team Europe's 3-2 win over Team Sweden on Sunday.
Gaborik took a puck to the foot during one of his shifts on Sunday and was notably slower afterwards. So much so that even Kevin Weekes mentioned it during the broadcast.
The 34-year old Gaborik was injured for a portion of last season as well with the Kings, appearing in 55 games accumulating 12 goals and 22 points. The Kings, with the absence of Milan Lucic's offensive output, were looking at Gaborik to have an improved year in terms of production to help fill the void. This is a setback that will push Gaborik's availability out for at least the nascent stages of the regular season.
The silver lining, however if there is one, is that the Kings were facing a significant log jam at forward to start the year that was going to potentially expose one of their young depth wingers to waivers. That, however, may not be a problem now with an absence form Gaborik. It is obviously not a positive thing, but positives can still be found.
Not only do the Kings lose an offensive cog, they are losing the last remaining mainstay on Anze Kopitar's wing from last season. With both Lucic and Gaborik not present, Kopitar is likely going to have to get used to entirely new wingers to start the year. Jeff Carter did spend time at wing last year alongside Kopitar, and Dustin Brown has also played with Kopitar in the past. This may open up another center spot on the second line as well if the Kings opt for moving Carter to wing (Nic Dowd anyone?).
For a team that already struggles somewhat for offense and goal production, losing Gaborik for a long amount of time is a scary proposition. The Kings will need to find a serviceable stop gap in the meantime, and at the least they do have quite a few options in filling the hole.
This is nothing new to Gaborik, who has yet to play a full 82 game season since 2010-11 with the Rangers. Gaborik has also only played more than 75 games a season five times in his 15 year NHL career.
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