Pascal Dupuis' Health Scare Puts Penguins Badly in Need of Forward Depth

Pascal Dupuis is one of the nicer, smarter men you could ever encounter in an NHL locker room.

Need a thoughtful quote whether things are going well or poorly for the Pittsburgh Penguins? You got it.

Need a few minutes of his time as he's making his escape to a back room away from the media? He'll make a U-turn and talk to you.

That's what makes the news that Dupuis will miss six months after he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his lung that much more disheartening. NHL.com's Wes Crosby reports it's the second time in less than a year that he has been diagnosed with a blood clot.

After tearing his ACL in December 2013, doctors found a clot a few weeks later.

Dupuis had a scare earlier this season when a puck hit him in the back of the neck. He was stretchered off the ice but returned to the lineup two nights later.

He spoke with Crosby about his outlook:

"

It's been hard. The knee, the puck in the neck, this is all stuff you come back from. You're a hockey player. You're supposed to come back from that stuff. It's the risk you take as a hockey play to be on the ice. The other stuff, the clot, the lungs -- that has nothing to do with hockey.

It's life-threatening, and you have to think of yourself and your loved ones before hockey comes to mind.

"

Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a nice piece on how Dupuis' teammates will miss him off the ice. But where Dupuis will be truly missed, for a second season in a row, is on the ice for a Penguins team that is once again starving for forward depth.

Dupuis had seven goals and 20 points in 39 games last season. This season, he had six goals and 11 points in 16 games. He played about 17 minutes per game over the past two seasons and is key part of a penalty kill that ranks fourth this season.

This won't derail the Penguins in the regular season. The absence of Dupuis took its toll in the playoffs, as the Penguins received one goal from a bottom-six forward during their seven-game, second-round loss to the New York Rangers last season.

The forward hierarchy shifted near the end of the season when then-general manager Ray Shero acquired players before the trade deadline, but with Dupuis out, things look eerily similar this season for new GM Jim Rutherford.

Player	Games	Average ice time	Goals	Assists	Points
Player	Games	Average ice time	Goals	Assists	Points
Sidney Crosby	80	21:58	36	68	104
Evgeni Malkin	60	20:03	23	49	72
Chris Kunitz	78	19:09	35	33	68
James Neal	59	18:26	27	34	61
Brandon Sutter	81	15:46	13	13	26
Jussi Jokinen	81	15:42	21	36	57
Top-six totals			155	233	388
Craig Adams	82	12:27	5	6	11
Brian Gibbons	41	11:56	5	12	17
Tanner Glass	67	11:47	4	9	13
Chuck Kobasew	33	11:12	2	0	2
Joe Vitale	53	10:58	1	13	14
Taylor Pyatt	34	10:52	4	0	4
Bottom-six totals			21	40	61

The bottom six above represents the Penguins' final lineup before acquiring Lee Stempniak and Marcel Goc at the trade deadline and getting Beau Bennett (seven points in 21 games) back from injury in time for the postseason.

With Dupuis once again lost for the season, the Penguins are in a nearly identical situation with slightly different players accounting for the top-heavy dispersal of production.

Player	Games	Average ice time	Goals	Assists	Points
Player	Games	Average ice time	Goals	Assists	Points
Sidney Crosby	17	18:52	8	18	26
Evgeni Malkin	17	18:14	7	13	20
Chris Kunitz	17	18:07	8	8	16
Patric Hornqvist	17	17:55	9	11	20
Brandon Sutter	17	17:36	5	5	10
Nick Spaling	17	14:07	4	3	7
Top-six totals			41	58	109
Blake Comeau	16	14:04	4	5	9
Steve Downie	17	12:26	3	6	9
Marcel Goc	17	12:17	1	0	1
Beau Bennett	4	11:09	1	2	3
Craig Adams	17	9:55	1	0	1
Zach Sill	15	7:13	0	0	0
Bottom-six totals			10	13	23

James Neal and Patric Hornqvist, traded for each other in the offseason, are mirror images of production. Goc is now a full-time part of the equation. Jussi Jokinen left for the Florida Panthers in the offseason, but Bennett is healthy now after wrist surgery cost him time to open the season.

In terms of minutes, Nick Spaling has played slightly more than Blake Comeau, but it's the latter who has done more work with a top-six group. Perhaps Bennett will be asked to play more top-six minutes.

But no matter how you slice it, no matter who from the bottom half of that chart gets moved up, the Penguins' bottom six is about to again become a wasteland—not that it was doing much anyway.

The top six, however, is a magical land of production that will still carry the Penguins to the top of the Metropolitan Division and perhaps the Eastern Conference.

As always with the Penguins, it's about the playoffs. Where will the scoring come from when teams put the clamps on Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin? That's why the next few months are so important for Rutherford, who—just like his predecessor—will have to plug holes to get his team to the Stanley Cup final.

John Russell/Getty Images

With Dupuis on long-term injured reserve, the Penguins will have between $4 million and $5 million in salary-cap space to add a player, and that's if the deal doesn't include the other team retaining salary.

Some potential candidates for acquisition include Nick Foligno, Drew Stafford, Jiri Tlusty, Martin Erat, Curtis Glencross and Erik Cole.

The aforementioned players are all pending unrestricted free-agent wingers on teams that could very likely be sellers at the trade deadline. Glencross' Flames are off to a hot start, but they have a chance to fade back to the pack between now and the March 5 trade deadline.

Foligno (nine goals, 18 points) is having a career year while Tlusty was a 2006 first-round pick when Rutherford was running the Hurricanes.

This will be the third year running that the Penguins will be searching for forward help at the deadline, which is a product of unfortunate luck for Dupuis and poor drafting by Shero.

All statistics via NHL.com. Contract and salary-cap information courtesy of CapGeek.com.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @DaveLozo.