DiPietro hasn't played more than 26 games in an NHL season since 2007-08. (Getty Images)

According to a report out of Germany, Rick DiPietro injured his groin again last week, causing him to miss some time. That didn't surprise anybody except perhaps DiPietro himself. He denied the injury report.

The chronically injured Islanders goaltender, who is signed through the 2021 season, is spending the lockout by playing hockey in Germany's second division. After a recent game for SC Riessersee, this is what the merkur-online in Germany (with help from Google Translate, of course) had to say:

Rick DiPietro is suffering since Thursday to a groin problem. Di Pietro's loss was something of a godsend for the guests. Because that could also ran Andrew Lord, who finally handed in an extremely strong performance.

That would have been some real insult to injury. Not only was DiPietro reportedly going down with an injury again, but the German media was taking some shots at DiPietro's abilities on the ice, too. I'm sure some of it is lost in translation, but it's more or less saying that by allowing Markus Keller to take over in goal, the team was able to make Lord's efforts hold up. Ouch.

If only that were the case. DiPietro called the report "not true at all" on Monday and added he's doing just fine physically.

According to the team's website (again translated via Google), DiPietro wasn't overly successful in the little bit of action he's seen thus far. In the one game (on their stats page as of now) he gave up three goals. OK, very small sample size but apparently things don't seem to be starting that great for DiPietro in Germany.

You'll recall DiPietro missed a good chunk of last season (of course you recall that part) due to a groin injury. Between that and a concussion, he only played eight games for the Islanders last season, sporting a 3.73 GAA and .876 save percentage.

It's was an easy assumption that DiPietro aggravated the same groin injury as before. Perhaps he might have tweaked it or something that this could have gotten so lost in translation, but according to him he's just fine.

It's just such an astonishing trail of bad luck that DiPietro always seems to go down that made this seem so plausible from the beginning. He cannot seem to stay healthy and, sadly, we all pretty much expected he would get injured sooner or later when he went overseas.  Regardless if he's injured now or not, hopefully for his sake he had no problem insuring his contract should the injury linger on and he can't return to the Islanders right away whenever the lockout is lifted.

I won't lie: I feel bad for the guy. It's not his fault that Mike Milbury gave him a huge and unreasonable contract with the Islanders. Like any player he just wants to compete on the ice. I would love to see him put together a couple of full seasons in a row to show what he can really do.

H/t to Justin Bourne

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