I’m not going to freak out, I’m not going to freak out, I’m not going to–

Oh hell.  I’m freaking out.

Via John Hahn in the Red Wings’ Communications department:

Red Wings forward Johan Franzen has suffered a torn ACL in his left knee and expected to be out of the lineup a minimum of four months.

Matt Saler over at On the Wings followed the news as it broke on Twitter.

This is so not good.  As much as I scoffed at the MSM’s idea that Detroit can’t deal with the loss of 88 goals gone with Hossa, Hudler, and Samuelsson, this might be detriment.  Franzen has been projected as a 40-goal scorer this season, and not having that production for 4 months will be felt.  Just to twist the thorn a little more, keep in mind that it’s a minimum of four months.  Which means who the hell knows when he’s getting back.

With this turn of events, the Red Wings are really going to have to rely on Zetterberg, Cleary, and Filppula to improve on their scoring.

–EDIT 5:45pm–

Abdelkader has been called back up and Babcock is playing around with line combinations.

Let’s consider the possibilities… the interesting thing here is that Babcock can shuffle guys like Zetterberg and Filppula between wing and center.  I have a feeling he’ll move Filppula up to the top line to replace Franzen, but I’d love to see him put the Homer-Z-Dats line back together.  Unfortunately, with the loss of Franzen, he’ll be even more concerned with spreading out the offense across multiple lines.

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