Pavel Datsyuk To Miss Two Weeks Following Procedure On Knee

The Detroit Red Wings get healthy in one area and unhealthy in another, and it's significant on both fronts. After getting goaltender Jimmy Howard back in action following a broken finger at the start of February, the team will now be without its most dynamic scoring threat for around two weeks, according to Ansar Khan of MLive.com. Coach Mike Babcock said that Pavel Datsyuk had arthroscopic knee surgery and will be out for two weeks.

Datsyuk had the surgery Tuesday morning and there was no prior news about him needing any kind of procedure. It does seem that this was more routine maintenance than anything else, and that is reflected in a couple tweets from Khan with quotes from Babcock:

Babcock: "Everything is real good. (Datsyuk) had fragment in his knee, an old thing we wanted to clear up prior to playoff time.''

That makes a lot of sense, really. The Red Wings are running hot right now, even with a backup goaltender having taken charge over the past couple weeks. The worst thing that can happen is for them to get near the playoffs and have Datsyuk go down due to complications with his knee. Detroit isn't presently fighting through the hardest part of their schedule, so it makes sense to get this done sooner rather than later, providing there were no complications in the procedure.

For more on the Detroit Red Wings, check out Winging It In Motown. You can also head over to SB Nation's main NHL hub at SBNation.com/NHL.