Red Wings' Jonathan Ericsson out rest of regular season with broken finger

The Detroit Red Wings' season of pain had another chapter written this morning as Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson underwent surgery to stabilize a broken finger and is expected to be out of the lineup for four-to-six weeks.

UPDATE: Jonathan Ericsson has undergone successful surgery. He's expected to miss 4-6 weeks #RedWings
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) March 19, 2014

"We get somebody hurt every day, and they never come back," coach Mike Babcock lamented on Wednesday.

Babcock is being pitifully sarcastic, but given the number of injuries the Red Wings have suffered this season, things probably seem that bad.  Already dealing with life without Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, Joakim Andersson, Stephen Weiss and Tomas Jurko, the Wings have nevertheless been relatively healthy on the blue line - But Ericsson's injury breaks that streak.

Ericsson was injured in the second period of Detroit's 3-2 win over Toronto on Tuesday night - a victory that has become is important in Hockeytown these days with all of the injuries, and it should be considered a minor miracle that the Red Wings are just one point out of the Eastern Conference's second wild card entry, hanging tough with a 5-4-1 record since the Olympic Break.

 Ericsson isn't much on the offensive end, sporting just one goal and 10 helpers in 48 games, but he eats a significant number of minutes on the blue line.

"It's tough; he's one of our top D-men," goaltender Jimmy Howard said after the win. "You kind of shake your head; hopefully we don't lose another guy because now it's just getting to be mind-boggling."

It was mind-boggling before, Jimmy - now it's bordering on ridiculous.