Fife Flyers square-up to five-in-a-row Challenge Cup winners Nottingham Panthers tonight minus skipper Kyle Haines.
The injury to the influential Canadian arguably one of Flyers top two players this term is a massive blow.
His shoulder injury suffered against Sheffield Steelers on Sunday is not as bad as the club feared, but the 27-year-old from Saskatchewan has been ruled out for this week.
Fife go into the quarter-final first-leg on a downer having slipped to ninth place in the Elite League after four straight defeats.
Head coach Todd Dutiaume admitted his side were on a “bit of a slide” but added: “We don’t believe we’re a ninth placed club but we must find a way to turn this around.
“One result could do that and we have shaped up well against Nottingham head-to-head this season.”
Dutiaume added: “The injury to Kyle is, thankfully, not nearly as bad as we feared, but he won’t be involved this week.
“He is a big miss as Kyle logs a lot of minutes for us and is probably one of our top two players. He’s the captain as well but the guys know what they have to do. We need more of them showing up. We have passengers and we need to find a way to stop losing games.
“We also need to stay out of the penalty box. Sure, guys get frustrated with referees, but they need to keep their cool. We keep taking stupid, stupid penalties and you can’t kill 28 minutes of penalties and expect to win a hockey game.”