Penguins Lose Evgeni Malkin and Kaedan Korczak to Lower-Body Injuries

The Pittsburgh Penguins are currently 5-7-2 and just found a way to make their week even worse. Evgeni Malkin and Kaedan Korczak are officially day-to-day with lower-body injuries, turning Tuesday's matchup against the Vegas Golden Knights into a massive headache.

Losing Malkin is the kind of news that makes you want to stare blankly at a wall. He logged nearly 18 minutes in Saturday’s 5-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens and looked perfectly fine, which means this injury materialized out of thin air just to ruin your fantasy hockey week.

Malkin has been the only thing keeping the Pittsburgh offense from completely sinking into the Monongahela River. Through 13 games, he has six goals and five assists, tying him with Nick Robertson for the team lead in goals and sitting right behind Erik Karlsson in total points.

Korczak going down is a quieter disaster, but it still hurts a blue line that needs all the help it can get. The 25-year-old defenseman has been eating up over 18 minutes of ice time a night and has six assists through 14 games.

Just to add a little extra misery to the injury report, Elmer Soderblom was downgraded to week-to-week with an upper-body issue. He was supposed to be eligible to return this weekend, but instead, the Penguins are just stacking up hospital bills.

If you were looking at the Penguins as a sneaky home underdog against Vegas, you might want to recalculate that math. Taking 11 points and 35 minutes of combined daily ice time out of a lineup that is already two games under .500 is a recipe for a very long Tuesday night.

Pittsburgh has to figure out a patch job immediately before the Golden Knights roll into town. If Malkin and Korczak cannot get right by Thursday's game against the Boston Bruins, this early-season slide is going to turn into a full-blown freefall.