Breaking: Brandon Dubinsky has suffered a major injury in practice,

Suffering an injury during a game early on in a National Hockey League season can be incredibly frustrating, especially if it's an injury that keeps you out for the long term. Perhaps even worse than that however is when you suffer a significant injury while simply practicing and running drills, again even more so when the injury is a long term one. 

Unfortunately for veteran forward and notorious NHL agitator Brandon Dubinsky that now appears to be the reality that he is faced with at this time. According to an official report from the Columbus Blue Jackets organization, Dubinsky suffered a significant injury during practice on Sunday and is now expected to miss several long weeks of action. Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen himself delivered the news on Monday and confirmed that Dubinsky would be placed on injured reserve due to how long he is expected to be out of the line up.

Thankfully, in a rare case of transparency and honesty from an NHL team, the Blue Jackets seemed more than happy to discuss the injury with the media. According to Kekalainen, Dubinsky suffered a suffered a strained oblique muscle during the course of the practice on Sunday and will now be out of the line up for a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks. The one thing the general manager did not provide us with was any details regarding the nature of the injury or how it may have occurred for that matter.

The timing could not have been any worse for Dubinsky as he appeared to be having a very strong start to the season with the Blue Jackets. Since the first two games of the season Dubinsky has one nearly 70% of all face off draws he has taken at the NHL level. Additionally through two games Dubinsky was also able to record a pair of points, something that had him sitting  on a point per game season, although admittedly over an extremely limited sample size.

Dubinsky plays a key role for the Blue Jackets both in terms of production and in terms of his attitude and demeanor. There's no question that his absence will be felt considerably by the Blue Jackets.