The injury list is long and the season hasn’t even begun
This NHL preseason has not been a pretty one for key players suffering major injuries. Drew Doughty and Patrik Laine will miss months. Artemi Panarin, Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, John Marino, David Reinbacher and Thomas Chabot have been dinged as well. Even number one overall pick Macklin Celebrini has gotten injured this preseason.
Which is to say, the Penguins aren’t alone in being banged up before the regular season has even begun. The team provided a list of their updates this morning.
Here’s the full list of injury updates, per @PenguinsPR: pic.twitter.com/WhboKDEjBW
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) October 2, 2024
The most meaningful update as of now is perhaps the one on Alex Nedeljkovic, who will be missing the start of the season after a designation of a week-to-week lower body injury. Pittsburgh will have to roll with Joel Blomqvist or Filip Larsson as a temporary backup to Tristan Jarry.
The start of the year has to be in question now for Blake Lizotte, who suffered a tough luck injury getting struck by a puck while on the bench during a game. That will open up a spot on the fourth line for a younger player to go after.
There was a positive update mixed in with that bad news. Erik Karlsson was back on the ice for a second straight day today, getting some work in prior to the team’s practice session. And it looks like he was wheeling around pretty well.
Erik Karlsson is skating again this morning. He skated yesterday and Head Coach Mike Sullivan said he had a really good day and was making progress.
Skating with him is Matt Nieto, Beau Jelsma, and Jagger Joshua @SNPittsburgh pic.twitter.com/cx9oB1vlr6
— Hailey Hunter (@TheHaileyHunter) October 2, 2024
Bryan Rust is getting a day off practice after picking up some dings in last night’s preseason game, including a heavy hit. Ideally that will only be precautionary but hopefully he will get back towards 100% in the next week before the season begins.
Speaking of heavy spills into the boards, it’s nice to see Vasily Ponomarev is only listed as day-to-day and not a more serious status after his injury in last night’s game. With Lizotte out of the picture now, it would have been a really good time for Ponomarev to be healthy and make a run at trying to replace him in a similar role, but it looks like timing might prevent that from coming to pass.
The Pens can’t complain compared to other teams who have lost more significant players to serious injury in the preseason, but they can certainly commiserate with a growing injury list that’s getting fairly long even before the real games start.