Every team hopes to make it through the pre-season unscathed regarding injuries, but as teams across the NHL find out the hard way, those hopes don’t always come to fruition.
Days after reports surfaced that Los Angeles Kings winger Arthur Kaliyev suffered a broken collarbone and Minnesota Wild winger Matthew Boldy was week-to-week with a lower-body injury, the New York Rangers are dealing with two key contributors bit by the injury bug.
During a Tuesday night win against the New York Islanders, Rangers winger Artemi Panarin suffered a lower-body injury. He left the game in the third period, and on Wednesday, the New York Post’s Mollie Walker reported he was considered day-to-day. That’s great news for the team, as Panarin was far and away their leading scorer during the 2023-24 season, racking up 49 goals and 120 points, marking career-highs in both categories.
News around defenceman Ryan Lindgren isn’t as rosy, however, as he’s dealing with an upper-body injury that will keep him out for “at least a few weeks.” Lindgren also left Tuesday’s game following a fight with Islanders defenceman Scott Mayfield.
Mayfield laid a big on Rangers forward Filip Chytil, who missed most of last season with concussion issues, and Lindgren came to his defence shortly after that. While Lindgren would leave the game after the first-period scrap, Chytil would return.
The Rangers are looking to take another deep run in the playoffs after they swept the Washington Capitals in the first round last year and beat the Carolina Hurricanes in six games before falling to the Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Flames deeper than many think
The Edmonton Oilers were left with a sour taste in their mouth Sunday, falling in both legs of a split-squad game with the Calgary Flames, a team Daily Faceoff’s Mike Gould says is deeper than some may give credit for.
Despite going through a rebuild, having seen a gluttony of players leave in recent years, Gould opined Wednesday that the likes of Matt Coronato and Martin Pospisil, two up and coming players in their system, might be playing down the depth chart when the season kicks off even with more selling coming this season.
As we mentioned here at Daily Faceoff back in July, the Flames still have more significant players who they could look to move as they continue their rebuilding process. Two of the players listed in that piece, Jacob Markstrom and Andrew Mangiapane, are already gone, but many others still remain. If the Flames do end up trading Kuzmenko and Mantha (or even depth players like Rooney, Hanley, and Walker Duehr) at some point in the next few months, it could create room for their younger players to make the jump — but any prospects or picks who come the Flames’ way in those deals will just provide more competition down the line.Any good rebuild needs a strong foundation. The Flames have a couple of potential core pieces already in their organization in Parekh and Dustin Wolf, as well as an enormous amount of prospective secondary players. The upcoming season should give the Flames even more clarity as to which of Coronato, Pelletier, Brzustewicz, Poirier, and their counterparts fit into their future plans. It’ll also tell them more about which ones won’t cut it.The Flames are only starting down the long road toward building a contending roster. For now, the stakes are relatively low. Where things are really heating up is with the individual training camp battles, and all that extra competition can only help the Flames as they continue to take a long-term view of their situation. If what someone like Coronato needs to do to secure a top-six spot is to outplay his fellow prospects and a seasoned veteran like Mantha, it’s up to him to sink or swim. The same goes for the other half-dozen or so players in his cohort.If nothing else, it’ll be fascinating to watch.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
