Ladies and gentlemen, we’re hearing reports from various media sources regarding the status of Calgary Flames star winger Johnny Gaudreau… and they’re not good.

For what it’s worth, the online source of all human knowledge (Google) estimates the healing time from a broken finger to be roughly 4-6 weeks. That would place Gaudreau’s return to the lineup from such a malady as somewhere around the end of December or early January.

The Flames have confirmed Gaudreau’s status, but have not yet provided a timeline for his return.

The injury was suffered sometime during last night’s 1-0 Flames win over Minnesota (a game where Gaudreau scored the only goal). The winger was slashed by Ryan Suter in the second period and left the game. Then he returned to the game, only to suffer another slash from Eric Staal and leave the game all together midway through the third period.

Gaudreau is no stranger to these types of injuries. He missed two games late last season with wrist issues after being slashed by Chicago’s Duncan Keith during a game against the Blackhawks.

TSN’s Aaron Ward was the first to publicly indicate that Gaudreau’s injury was this serious.

We’ll have more updates as they become available. The Flames play tonight at home against Arizona.