Ramblings: Jake Gardiner Injury; Blues/Devils Updates; Granlund-Fiala Trade – February 28

 

Jake Gardiner missed Wednesday night’s game with back problems and is considered week-to-week right now. Igor Ozhiganov drew into the lineup.

As a small aside: one injury to one of their Big Four of Gardiner/Rielly/Muzzin/Dermott leads to the Leafs trotting out Hainsey/Zaitsev/Ozhiganov on the right side of their defence. It shows the fragility of the blue line. If a centre gets hurt, they can move William Nylander to the middle. If a winger gets hurt, they’re so deep they had Andreas Johnsson on the fourth line for big chunks of the year. If one of their left-shooting defencemen get hurt, well, you see the result.

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There was a laundry list of New Jersey Devils injury updates:

 

Devils injury news:

Miles Wood has an ankle fracture. No surgery needed, out about 4 weeks.
Kyle Palmieri is week to week with a lower body injury.
Jesper Bratt is day to day with a lower body injury.
Pavel Zacha is skating, no contact yet.

— Chris Ryan (@ChrisRyan_NJ) February 27, 2019

 

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We can also add to the laundry list of injuries for the Penguins:

 

For Penguins, Chad Ruhwedel was seen leaving arena last night in Columbus with right arm in a sling.

Bryan Rust left with his foot in a boot and on crutches.

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) February 27, 2019

 

Both are expected to be out long-term, though whether that’s four weeks or four months, we don’t know as we are waiting for a more clear timeline.

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The Coyotes extended Conor Garland for a couple years with an AAV of $750K. For those with him in cap leagues, he’ll continue to be a great bargain for the foreseeable future.

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Boston called up Peter Cehlarik and K