James Neal: “I’m ready to play tonight”

With the injuries mounting in Pittsburgh, several wounded forwards are stepping up and filling in. Craig Adams and Arron Asham are both expected to gut through their various ailments in order to play tonight. More importantly, top line right wing stepped onto the ice with a boot on his broken foot.

After taking part in today’s full morning skate, Neal declared himself ready to play according to Sam Kasan of PittsburghPenguins.com, via Twitter. Although head coach Dan Blysma claimed the entire lineup would be a game-time decision, Neal is very likely to draw back in tonight.

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Just one game after losing center Jordan Staal to a significant knee injury, leading scorer and top-line right wing James Neal broke his foot blocking a shot in Saturday night’s 3-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils. According to Sam Kasan of PittsburghPenguins.com, Neal is out indefinitely. Head coach Dan Blysma would add that Neal will miss weeks, not days.

This latest injury is a big blow to the fantasy hockey community. His 21 goals not only lead the Penguins but are fifth in the entire league. In fact, Neal is ranked the 13th most-important player in all of Yahoo! fantasy hockey leagues. You may be able to get by streaming streaking goal scorers like Curtis Glencross, Jiri Hudler, Sergei Kostitsyn or Lars Eller but you really can’t replace consistent goal scoring.

At this point, we are unsure who replaces Neal on the top line. However, that forward — probably Pascal Dupuis or Tyler Kennedy — likely would be worth a look in standard leagues.