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Detroit’s Dan Cleary out indefinitely with broken ankle

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You’ll have to give Red Wings fans a break if they start having flashbacks to last season right about now. With a lineup that’s already without Mike Modano and Pavel Datsyuk, the Red Wings take another blow injury-wise tonight as Detroit’s leading goal scorer Dan Cleary is out indefinitely after breaking his ankle in tonight’s 4-0 win over Minnesota.

Cleary leads Detroit with 16 goals this year and even had one in tonight’s win, but now they’ll be without Cleary’s services for at least a few weeks. The Wings will call up youngster Jan Mursak from Grand Rapids to take Cleary’s spot in the lineup. With Modano out with a wrist injury and Datsyuk out with a broken hand, the Wings are starting to resemble a freak injury M.A.S.H. unit.

Fortunately for Detroit, they’ve seen Henrik Zetterberg step up his game since Datsyuk’s been out and Justin Abdelkader as well as the return of Kris Draper have softened the blow of losing Modano. Replacing Cleary will be much more difficult to do, however. It can’t hurt for Detroit to give Mursak a shot to see what he can do in the NHL, but this would make for a great chance for Jiri Hudler to break out of his season-long slump.

Update: Here’s video of how it went down. It’s just one of those things made even more difficult because it came off of Brad Stuart’s shot.
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