I thought we would look at each team in the Western Conference and see what players have been, or could be, an injury risk in 2024-25. This is such a contact sport that any player can be injured at any time, but these players seem to have either bad luck or a style that leads to more injuries than normal.

Once the season is back in full swing, you can get your injury updates here.

https://dobberhockey.com/category/hockey-home/injury-ward

Credit to nhlinjuryviz.blogspot.com for the historical injuries and tracking the nature of them.

Anaheim Ducks

Trevor Zegras missed 51 games in 23-24, with 31 classified as an ankle injury and 20 as a lower body injury (LBI). He was on the shelf at two separate times, but it could have been the same injury. He could be a little rusty to start 2024-25.

Mason McTavish has missed an average of nine games over the past three seasons. 18 of the 27 games he missed were LBI and nine were upper body injuries (UBI). It is a touch concerning to see a 21-year-old player get banged up so consistently after just 153 career games.

Leo Carlsson missed 20 games because of injury as a rookie in 2023-24. He was also a healthy scratch seven times. He missed eight games with a concussion, 10 with a knee injury and two with an LBI.

Alex Killorn didn't miss a game from 2020-21 to 2022-23, but ended up missing 19 games in his first year with Anaheim in 2023-24. 10 of those were with a finger injury and nine with a knee issue.

Robby Fabbri played 68 games in 2023-24 which was the most he had played since the 72 he played as a rookie in 2015-16.

Pavel Mintyukov missed 19 games as a rookie in 2023-24, with eight classified as an LBI and 11 the result of a shoulder injury.

Cam Fowler missed 23 games with a facial injury in 2018-19 and 12 games in 2019-20 with a lower body injury but has been relatively healthy since, missing just a few games over the past four years. The band-aid could be taken off.

Calgary Flames

Nazem Kadri has a bit of a band-aid tag but has yet to miss a game in Calgary.

Anthony Mantha went through some injury issues between 2018-19 and 2021-22 where he missed 15 games with a hand injury in 2018-19, 28 games in 2019-20 (eight/knee and 20/lung) and 45 games in 2021-22 with a shoulder injury. He missed nine games in 2022-23 and five in 2023-24. He's going to get hurt at some point most years.

Chicago Blackhawks

Tyler Bertuzzi managed to play 80 games with Toronto in 2023-24, but in the three years prior, he missed 47 games with a back injury in 2020-21, five games in 2021-22 for being unvaccinated and 31 games in 2022-23 – split between 13 games for a hand injury, two for LBI and 16 for his wrist. He has played more than 73 games just once in seven seasons.

Andreas Athanasiou played 81 games in 2022-23, but managed just 28 games in both 2021-22 and 2023-24. His injuries were covid (14), LBI (16), undisclosed (32) and a groin injury which held him out last year for 53 games.

Taylor Hall has missed 203 NHL games since 2010-2011 because of a knee injury or a leg injury. He has missed 136 of those games with a knee issue and missed 47 games in 2018-19 and 66 games in 2023-24 with a knee injury. He has played 66 games or more just once in the past six seasons.

Alec Martinez is now 37 years of age and has played 61 games or more just once in the past six seasons.

Connor Murphy has missed substantial time since 2018-19, including 30 games that year with a back injury, 12 games in 2019-20 with groin issues, six games in 2020-21 with hip issues, 25 games in 2021-22 with a concussion and 35 games in 2023-24 with more groin problems.

Laurent Brossoit has had injury issues in 2021-22 and 2022-23 where he missed 22 games in 2021-22 with UBI and undisclosed injuries and 28 games and all of the playoffs in 2022-23 with hip and LBI issues. He has never played more than 24 NHL games in a season. He just had off-season surgery in late August to repair his meniscus. Be wary.

Colorado Avalanche

Artturi Lehkonen has battled injuries since being in Colorado. In 2022-23 he missed 18 games with a finger injury (15) and a UBI (3), and last year he missed 35 games with neck issues (33) and illness (2). He hasn't played more than 74 games since 2018-19.

Nathan MacKinnon missed 16 games in 2021-22 through a myriad of issues and missed 11 in 2022-23 with a UBI. He played all 82 games in 2023-24 for the first time since 2018-19. His style of play could be the reason he might miss five to 10 games each year.

Mikko Rantanen missed 28 games in 2019-20 but has missed just 13 games over the past four seasons. I'd hardly consider him more of a risk than any NHL player.

Logan O'Connor missed 25 regular season games in 2023-24 with hip and lower body issues and he missed 11 games in the playoffs with the same hip issue. He should be ready for training camp, but it's difficult to be 100% after hip surgery.

Gabriel Landeskog hasn't played a game in the NHL since 2021-22 where he managed to play 51 games after playing 54 games in both years prior. He played 20 games in the 2021-22 playoffs and managed 22 points, but hasn't played since. There are reports that he should be back in 2024-25 but might not be ready for training camp. Believe it when you see him on the ice.

Casey Mittelstadt missed 42 games in 2021-22 with recurring UBIs. He has played 82 games and 80 games since, and I would hardly classify him as an injury risk more than anyone else.

Jonathan Drouin missed a lot of NHL games in 2019-20 because of a wrist injury (37) and an ankle injury (7). The wrist injury extended into 2021-22 when he missed 41 more games with it. The good news for 2022-23 was that he missed 20 games because of UBI and not his wrist. In 2023-24, which was his first year in Colorado, he missed just one game with a LBI in the regular season, but did miss eight games in the playoffs with the same injury.

Cale Makar didn't miss any games in 2023-24 with a UBI, for the first time in his career. In 2019-20 he missed 13 games with a UBI, 2020-21: 12 games, 2021-22: 2 games and 2022-23: 13 games. He missed an additional nine games in 2022-23 and five games in 2023-24 with an LBI. He is a genuine injury concern each year.

Dallas Stars

Roope Hintz has missed 25 games over the past five seasons, which is just over five per year. He hasn't missed more than nine games through injury since his rookie year in 2018-19.

Matt Duchene has missed more than 20 games from injury just twice in the past 13 seasons, with one being in 2011-12 where he missed 24 games with ankle (4) and knee (20) issues, and in 2020-21 where he missed 22 games with an LBI. Other than that, he has averaged 4.8 games lost in his other 11 seasons.

Miro Heiskanen has missed 10 or more games through injury or illness twice in the past three seasons. He missed 12 games (illness) in 2021-22 and 10 games (LBI) in 2023-24. It would be ideal if he played 75 games or more, but he is still not in the injury category of Cale Makar.

Edmonton Oilers

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins went through an injury phase in 2015-16 (27 games) and 2017-18 (20 games) which reared again in 2021-22 when he missed 18 games. 57 of the 65 games during that stretch were UBI. He has missed one game since 2021-22.

Viktor Arvidsson missed 64 games in 2023-24 with back (50) and LB (14) injuries. In the four years between 2018-19 and 2021-22, he didn't play more than 66 games. He is the definition of injury prone.

Evander Kane has missed a lot of hockey games over the past five seasons, outside of injury reasons. He played 77 games in 2023-24, but missed four games in the playoffs because of an abdominal injury. In 2022-23 he missed 40 games because of wrist (31) and UBI (9) injuries. He's a risk for sure.

Los Angeles Kings

Arthur Kaliyev missed 31 games in 2023-24 but just one was because of injury. The rest (30) were healthy scratches. In 2022-23, he played 56 games and missed 18 through injury (LBI) and was a healthy scratch in eight games.

Tanner Jeannot missed 27 games in 2023-24 with UB (2) and LB (25) injuries. Before then, from 2020-21 to 2022-23, he missed just three games. He plays a very physical game and I would expect 2023-24 to be more the norm than the three years prior.

Darcy Kuemper missed 28 games in 2019-20 and 22 in 2020-21 with LBIs. The good news is that he hasn't missed a game because of an LBI since.

Minnesota Wild

Marcus Johansson had concussion issues in 2017-18 and missed 50 games. He hasn't had an injury diagnosed as a concussion since, but did miss 10 games in 2018-19, eight games in 2019-20 and 18 games in 2020-21 all with UBIs. He has only missed six games since 2021-22 but is still a risk.

Mats Zuccarello played 78 games in 2022-23, but outside of that hasn't played more than 70 games since 2017-18. At 37 years of age and his build, he has to be an injury risk.

Ryan Hartman missed 21 games in 2022-23 with an UBI, but outside of that one year, he has averaged missing between two and three games in his career.

Marcus Foligno has missed between six and 27 games in each of the past five seasons. He averaged missing 15 games and missed 14 games in 2022-23 and 27 in 2023-24. He couldn't stay healthy in 2023-24 as he was sidelined with four different injuries at different times.

Jonas Brodin hasn't played more than 73 games since 2018-19. He has missed a number of games since 2021-22 where he missed nine (UBI), 21 games in 2022-23 (LBI) and 20 games in 2023-24 (UBI).

Jared Spurgeon missed 17 games in 2021-22, with 15 due to LBI and two for UBIs. He was healthy in 2022-23, missing just two games, but missed 66 games in 2023-24 with hip and LBI issues responsible for 53 games, while UBI caused 13 games. He could be back in time for training camp, but I'd be risk averse.

Next week we will look at the rest of the Western Conference teams, Nashville, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis, Utah, Vancouver, Vegas and Winnipeg.

Thank you very much for reading and if you have any comments, please leave them below or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15