Sounders get some key attackers back, but lose defender Kim Kee-Hee for the next month

SEATTLE – They are not yet out of a tumultuous opening month that’s presented far too many injury challenges to overcome.

But the winless Sounders will at least get some relief on attack Saturday night when midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro and striker Will Bruin are back in the starting lineup to face the visiting Montreal Impact. That boost will nonetheless be offset by a new injury that will keep recently imported Korean center back Kim Kee-Hee out for a good month.

A recent calf injury suffered by Kim, disclosed by the team Friday, will force it to deploy a fatigued Roman Torres at center back fresh off his Panamanian national team appearance against Chile this past week. It’s one more challenge for a struggling Sounders side that’s already had back-line communication problems much of this month, including in back-to-back 3-0 road losses to Dallas and Mexican side Chivas.

“We’ve had some time to get on the training field and put in some really hard sessions,” Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei said Friday of the nearly two-week gap since the latest of those losses to Dallas. “Guys that were tired last week have worked hard and we feel that we’ve learned something from it.”

For all of their struggles, the Sounders remain just 0-2 in Major League Soccer play heading into Saturday’s clash at CenturyLink Field. The Chivas loss was one of four CONCACAF Champions League contests the team played ahead of the Dallas game and which Frei agreed left his side rather depleted.

“Of course it does, it has an impact,” Frei said. “You’re traveling, I mean, it’s difficult for us because we had a thin roster to begin with. We had a lot of unfortunate injuries.”

Now, they’ll have Bruin returning off his concussion and Lodeiro from a midfoot injury to bolster an attack that’s yet to score a regular season goal. And if Torres can gut his way through at least 60 minutes on Saturday without leaving the defense too exposed, the Sounders can then drop Gustav Svensson back a line to finish the match and will have another two weeks after that to rest up before facing Sporting Kansas City on the road.

In many ways, the quirky schedule and playing just three MLS games the opening six weeks has been as lucky for the Sounders as injuries have been unlucky. Kim’s calf injury is officially being called a strain but team sources said it is of the more serious variety and will keep him out at least several weeks.

There are three grades of calf strains. The least serious Grade 1 strain can keep a player sidelined a week or two. But a Grade 2 strain can take several weeks beyond that to recover from. The worst possible strain is Grade 3 – a complete rupture – and often requires surgery and several months of recovery.

Based on what the Sounders have indicated, Kim likely has a Grade 2 strain.

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown suffered a highly publicized Grade 2 calf strain late in the NFL season but played again four weeks later in a critical playoff matchup.

So, the earliest Kim would likely return is probably April 29 at Los Angeles FC, which would mean missing three contests in the interim. That puts more pressure on Torres, who arrived in January camp with a sore hamstring and minimal conditioning, to get his game to a higher level than it’s looked thus far.

The Sounders back-line was running around in circles at times against Dallas and Chivas, with Torres often appearing a step behind opponents. Montreal is off to a 1-2 start, but an attack led by midfielder Ignacio Piatti presents a significant challenge to a back-foursome that’s yet to communicate or click on all fronts.

“We really have to maintain our concentration and make sure that all of their players are marked,” Torres said Friday, through an interpreter. “They have some really quality players that really step up on their counterattacks. As long as we’re focused and concentrating on the guys in front of us, we’ll be able to do a good job.”

That wasn’t the case a year ago in Montreal, when Piatti and his counterattacking teammates blitzed a slow-looking Sounders defense continuously. Montreal led 2-0 most of the way before a pair of Sounders goals in the dying minutes salvaged an improbable draw.

This time, Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer would like to take advantage of an inconsistent Impact back-line and get on the board early in front of the hometown fans. Getting on the board at all would be an improvement, but Schmetzer feels his crew – Kim’s injury aside – is much stronger than it looked a couple of weeks back.

“Much better,” he said, smiling, adding that other than Kim and slowly-recovering midfielder Victor Rodriguez, “we’re pretty healthy.”

There’s an outside chance that oft-injured midfielder Osvaldo Alonso could dress for the first time this year as a reserve for Saturday’s game. But most likely, the team will want to avoid using him at all until the K.C. match in two weeks time.

Given the injury luck plaguing the team to-date, any chance of pushing things with Alonso vanished long ago.