Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg will miss the last two games of the regular season and his status is unknown for the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week.
Detroit finishes their regular season on Friday and Sunday with a home-and-home series against Chicago and will start the playoffs next Wednesday or Thursday. The team wouldn’t reveal the results of an MRI performed Thursday, bringing out the trusty “lower-body” description.
“I will say it’s better than I thought,” Zetterberg said.
But, he also said, “Feels a little worse today, as expected. It stiffened up a little bit. I think the next few days will be critical to see how fast I turn around, and hopefully, it will come sooner than later.”
The team will now have to walk the fine line of letting the injury heal or pushing Zetterberg back faster because of the playoffs. The team held a number of players out recently, including Pavel Datsyuk and Todd Bertuzzi, with injuries but said that they would have been playing if it were the playoffs.
A lot will also depend on the situation. If Zetterberg sits the first couple of games and the Red Wings struggle, the team may have no choice but to bring him back early.