After Jimmy Howard broke his finger in Thursday night's shootout win over the Vancouver Canucks, early speculation was that Howard would miss up to two weeks. On Friday morning, the Red Wings issued a press release stating that they had recalled Joey MacDonald from the AHL and Howard would miss just two games before being reevaluated in Detroit on Tuesday.
The report now, from MLIVE, is that Howard is more likely to miss two weeks, if not longer:
Detroit Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard acknowledged today that he will miss more than two games because of his broken right index finger.
But he really isn't sure how long he'll be out. He tossed out two weeks as an estimate, but is confident he'll return before the four-to-six weeks doctors in Vancouver told him it would take for the finger to heal.
"I don't really know what the time line is, to be honest,'' Howard said. "Hopefully, it's only a couple of weeks. I was just throwing a number out there.
"I haven't been told two weeks, but when they said four-to-six weeks (to heal), I was like there's no chance I'm going to be out for six. Two weeks sounded right.''
If it's two weeks, Howard should be back by the February 17 game against Nashville, which airs on NHL Network. Actually, the Red Wings have four straight games starting with that Preds game on national television, so hopefully Howard can return in that block of time.
For more on Howard and the Detroit Red Wings, check out Winging It In Motown. For more on the NHL, go to the SB Nation NHL hub at sbnation.com/NHL.