In Thursday night's home game against the Florida Panthers, Justin Abdelkader became the latest casualty when he collided with Vincent Trocheck at 8:35 of the first period.
Abdelkader is expected to miss 2-4 weeks with a slight sprain of his MCL in his right knee.
"He's a force for us every night," Niklas Kronwall said after the game. "He's one of those guys that wears his heart on his sleeve and just does it right out there. Of course it's a big loss. I'm not sure exactly what happened or how long he'll be gone. Hopefully he'll be back soon."
Kronwall knows something about knee injuries, having missed 13 games this season because of chronic wear and tear in his left knee.
The Wings are expected to call up a forward and likely another defenseman up from the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins because Kronwall has not been playing in back-to-back games and the Wings travel to Brooklyn to face the New York Islanders Sunday following Saturday's game in Pittsburgh.
Abdelkader joins Andreas Athanasiou (knee), Darren Helm (shoulder), Alexey Marchenko (shoulder), Jimmy Howard (groin), Tyler Bertuzzi (ankle) and Brendan Smith (knee) on the shelf.
Marchenko has just started skating with the team but is not yet cleared for contact and Athanasiou is still skating with strength and conditioning coach Mike Kadar.
Drew Miller, a healthy scratch four of the last five games, is ready to play Saturday.
The injuries have been an impediment to creating chemistry among the lines and defense pairs.
"I think the guys that come in do a good job but we're mixing, changing the lines and we had a good thing going here, we stuck together with the lines for a bit, had some chemistry in a lot of lines," captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "But it's hard when guys go down, you have to move around a little bit."
Abdelkader had been playing on a line with Frans Nielsen and Luke Glendening.
Riley Sheahan played some on that line after Abdelkader went out and could do so again.
Steve Ott is a natural center and could be in the middle of Miller and Tomas Jurco.
Glendening said the players have no time to feel sorry for themselves.
"If you look across the league though, it's happening to everyone and that's part of this league and it's part of the grind," Glendening said. "We have to keep moving forward. Obviously the guys who are hurt are missed. You've got to pick up your socks and get going."
The Wings had trouble with turnovers against the Panthers, something they know they won't be able to do and have success against a team like the Penguins.
"We obviously can't turn pucks over like that against Pittsburgh," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "There's a fine line. I don't want guys just throwing the puck away, I want to hold onto the puck, we want to be able to make plays. But you got to manage your game. I think we've learned that lesson. You'd suspect we'll be ready to play much better than that in terms of puck management on Saturday."
