Alexey Marchenko Suffers Upper-Body Injury

During their 3-2 defeat to the Calgary Flames, defenseman Alexey Marchenko went down with an upper-body injury.

Marchenko left the game in the second period after being crushed by Micheal Ferland. He didn’t come back for the third. After the game, Coach Blashill told the media that Marchenko would be out indefinitely. Today, he gave a more specific timeline.

Marchenko being out adds insult to injury for a team that has recently fallen on some pretty rough times. Not that the Red Wings’ future was looking too bright, but losing Niklas Kronwall, Tomas Jurco, Thomas Vanek, Andreas Athanasiou, and Darren Helm in the first twenty games of the season does not help. Kronwall and Vanek have since returned, but the former hasn’t made a huge difference for the team while the latter will require another couple of games to get back into the swing of things. Jurco and Athanasiou will be out for another one to two weeks and Helm is out for another five to six weeks.

At least in the case of Marchenko, no roster moves will need to be made as the Wings have been carrying eight defensemen. With Marchenko out, Brendan Smith likely slides back into the lineup after two games as a healthy scratch. Smith hasn’t been the worst defenseman on the team, but that’s never seemed to matter to this team. The least experienced players normally get scratched, which is why Xavier Ouellet and Ryan Sproul continue to rotate out. Considering their waiver-exempt status, the question continues to linger about whether or not Ken Holland will package one of them up in a trade.

For now, the Wings will lick their wounds. Marchenko should be ready to play full-time again sometime in mid-December.