from Jonathan Bombulie of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,

Let’s start with the injury situation on defense, which seems to be what a lot of people are talking about after this one.

Trevor Daley left with a lower-body injury late in the first period. Mike Sullivan said he’ll be evaluated once the team returns to Pittsburgh. He also said he’s “hopeful with Trevor that it won’t be anything significant,” so this might not be as serious a blow as the injuries to Olli Maatta and Justin Schultz were.

However long Daley is out, the path going forward seems pretty clear to me.

In the short term, Cameron Gaunce, who was a healthy scratch tonight, draws into the lineup. David Warsofsky or Derrick Pouliot could come up from Wilkes-Barre. The well of depth defensemen has not yet run dry.

In the longer term, Jim Rutherford has to go get a couple of defensemen before the trade deadline in a week.

That’s not a revelation. He might have done that even if nobody got hurt. He knows how quickly a couple of injuries can wreck a team’s blue line. He’s not going to get caught shorthanded.

The only question is whether we’re talking about a draft-pick-for-a-rental type deal or a bigger move involving more players with significant cap hits. My guess is the former, since there are so many moving pieces involved with making the latter work, but you could go broke trying to bet on what Rutherford’s going to do at times in his career. This is no different.

more on the Penguins...