DP out 4 to 6 weeks with facial fractures

Rick DiPietro has never looked beaten down by his injury woes. His latest, though, is taking a toll, mentally and physically.

DiPietro will be out four to six weeks with facial fractures suffered in his one-punch fight with Penguins goaltender Brent Johnson on Wednesday. His cranky left knee also is swollen again, so he might have been due for a rest regardless. But with a discolored face and bloodshot right eye, there was no hiding the pain of injuries that could prematurely end a season for DiPietro for the fifth straight year.

"At this point, whatever bad can happen just seems to happen," DiPietro said as his teammates practiced Friday at Nassau Coliseum. "Not just myself, but the entire team. It's not small groin pulls and you're out a couple days, it's major stuff. It's hips and knees and faces."

Initial X-rays taken at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh were negative, but a CT scan taken on Long Island on Thursday revealed multiple facial fractures.

The 6-1, 190-pound DiPietro, who fought Rangers goaltender Al Montoya in a preseason game in 2007, said he does not regret challenging the 6-3, 199-pound Johnson after DiPietro bumped Penguins winger Matt Cooke in the final seconds of the Islanders' 3-0 loss.

"I'm sick of losing. Our team's sick of losing,'' he said. "You never go into a fight expecting you're going to get smashed in the face that hard, or with these kind of consequences, but it happens and you move on."

Where the Isles go next is with Kevin Poulin, 20, their top goaltending prospect, whom the organization had hoped would spend the rest of this season working on his game in Bridgeport of the AHL. With Nathan Lawson still out with a sprained knee ligament, they do not have a healthy backup, and they'll have to add a goalie before Saturday night's game against Ottawa.

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Evgeni Nabokov could help if he chose to reverse course and report to the Islanders, but Don Meehan, Nabokov's agent, said general manager Garth Snow has not been in touch this week.

So the likeliest move is bringing up another prospect, Mikko Koskinen, to back up Poulin until the Islanders can sort things out. The Lightning waived Mike Smith and sent him to the minors; if he's brought back on recall waivers, the Islanders could claim him and would need to pay only half of a prorated $2.2 million for the rest of the season, roughly $350,000.

"We have some prospects in the system that I'm sure we'll take a look at," coach Jack Capuano said. "It's not the way he'd want it, but this is a big opportunity for Kevin."

And another missed opportunity for DiPietro, who is under contract for another 10 seasons at $4.5 million per. On Friday, he sounded like someone who is not ready to retire, just tired of the latest setback.

"You may think I'm crazy and people can laugh at me, but I'm confident this group of guys, at some point, is going to be a Stanley Cup winner," he said. "You need to lose before you learn how to win, and we've done plenty of that. It's just going to make us stronger as a group.

"You don't really ever want a broken face to be the reason you get extra rest, but you just keep telling yourself that everything happens for a reason. I'm not sure what that reason is yet, but hopefully, it'll come to the surface, and when we win the Stanley Cup, it'll make it that much sweeter."