Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome back to the Injury Ward. My name is Logan Clarkson and every Wednesday and Sunday I will be chauffeuring you through injury news and updates from around the NHL. I'll do my best to offer useful analysis and opinion as it relates to fantasy throughout. As always, I’d like to thank every single one of you for reading. Now, on to the bad (and some good) news.

William Nylander / Toronto Maple Leafs – Nylander (lower body) is day to day and was not in the lineup against Philadelphia on Saturday. This makes the second game in a row and three of the last four that Nylander has been unable to take to the ice. Nylander went in the first 20 picks of most serious drafts, and every game he misses is extremely detrimental to his owners. Willy has only gone pointless in only one of his nine games played so far, and has more multi-point games this year than single-point showings including two three-point efforts. Nylander's totals so far are 15 points, with only three of those being goals on 14 shots and no other cats to really write home about. I would check in with his owners to gauge their frustration levels, you never know how squirrely someone is feeling about a certain player. I am certainly getting a bit itchy owning him, Artemi Panarin and Nikolaj Ehlers on the same squad right now.

Quinn Hughes / Vancouver Canucks – Hughes (lower body) rejoined the Canucks on their three-game road trip, according to the Vancouver Province. Although he didn’t play on Saturday against Minnesota, Hughes could be back in the Canucks’ lineup for the final game of the trip on Monday against Nashville. This could be a game-time decision, but try to have Hughes back in your lineup if he’s active for that game.

Pierre-Luc Dubois / Washington Capitals – Dubois (lower body) is day to day and did not play against Buffalo on Saturday. Dubois has had a bit of a crap start to the year going pointless in his six games played so far (crap was a bit of an understatement). He has been dealing with the same injury since mid-October, so hopefully he can heal up and put this start behind him since he had a good year in 2024-25 with 66 points while playing the full 82-game season.

Elias Lindholm / Boston Bruins – Head coach Marco Sturm said Friday that Lindholm (lower body) will be out for a few weeks, Adam Pellerin of NESN reports. Lindholm has been quite serviceable leading up to the injury, with nine points in 13 games even adding seven of those on the powerplay. His shots leave a bit to be desired, at 1.7 per game but he does have 20 hits and 14 blocks on the side to go with with that points entree.

Justin Brazeau / Pittsburgh Penguins – Brazeau (upper body) has been deemed as day-to-day by the Penguins, announced by play-by-play announcer Josh Getzoff. Brazeau was replaced on the "too big to comfortably fit on airplanes line" by Philip Tomasino, bringing the line’s overhead clearance of 6-6 by being only a shrimp-like 6' tall. The immense size of the line has certainly been contributing to their effectiveness together, and has boosted Justin's point-per-game totals from 0.29 last year (split between Boston and Minnesota) to a 1.0 (six goals and six assists through twelve games). He's done this in only an average of about 15:30 of ice time a game at all strengths.

Matt Duchene / Dallas Stars – Duchene (upper body) was labelled as day-to-day on Saturday, and it was mentioned by Owen Newkirk of DLLS sports. Owen also mentioned that Roope Hintz did not travel with the team, but Duchene did. Duchene has posted two points so far in four games played, but had a point per game pace last season totalling a perfect 82 in 82. A total of 27 of those 82 came on the power play, where he skated most of his time with the top unit. In the four games he's played this year he was relegated to the second unit, so it’s a safe bet he won't see that many goal involvements again with the man advantage going forward.

Zach Benson / Buffalo Sabres – Benson was out of action with a lower-body injury on Saturday. Benson, who has eight assists in eight games so far in the young season, seemed to have been taking the step that everyone has been clamouring for since he entered the league. This may have something to do with skating alongside Jiri Kulich and Tage Thompson, the latter being one of the guys you'd really want to hitch your wagon to if you're in need of a payday. Zach is in year three of his three-year entry deal, and if he keeps this up when back from injury, he could be a prime offer sheet target. I would certainly be attempting to get out of Buffalo myself. No offense, and sorry Sabres fans.

Shayne Gostisbehere / Carolina Hurricanes – Gostisbehere (abdomen) doesn’t have a timetable for his return to the lineup, according to Walt Ruff and Peter Dewar of the Hurricanes’ official site. That does not sound great, and any sort of injury to core muscles is absolutely horrid for trying to stay in shape. I recently cracked five ribs and there is still a perfect imprint of my dumper in the bed where it sat for a month straight. Not exactly the same thing, but I can’t see Shayne having an easy time staying in game shape off ice if it’s bad enough to not even have a timetable.

Mats Zuccarello / Minnesota Wild – Zuccarello (lower body) could return in the next week or so, according to head coach John Hynes on Friday which was reported by Jessi Pierce of NHL.com.

Pyotr Kochetkov / Carolina Hurricanes – Kochetkov was sent to AHL Chicago on a conditioning assignment Friday. It may be worth lobbying your Yahoo league's manager to add an NA spot, since having a player go to the AHL for conditioning will give them this designation, and they will not be eligible for an IR or IR+ spot. You can contact Yahoo support to add it midseason for you. Kochetkov has not featured yet this regular season, and only played in one preseason game back on October 4. Pyotr has played in one AHL game so far for the Chicago Wolves in his conditioning stint, making 22 saves on 23 shots in a win.

Sean Couturier / Philadelphia Flyers – Couturier (upper body) did not play versus the Maple Leafs on Saturday, his impending absence reported prior to the game by Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia. Couturier has been excellent this season so far (nine points in 10 games), matching his last rosterable point per game totals of 0.9 from the shortened 45-game Covid season.

Chris Tanev / Toronto Maple Leafs – Tanev (upper body) was taken out of Saturday’s game against Philadelphia on a stretcher after Matvei Michkov knocked into him, Luke Fox of Sportsnet reports. It was a very unfortunate set of events that did the damage, happening at the Toronto blue line where Michkov was sat in behind the play and when the play caught up to him, he moved to gain speed along the blue line towards the middle of the ice to enter the zone. Tanev didn't see him behind, and made a bit of an adjustment at the last second to turn towards the direction of Michkov while skating backwards, giving Matvei no time to avoid the collision even though he tried. Tanev had just returned from concussion issues, missing action from October 21 until Saturday. Hopefully he can recover fully and speedily.

Sunday morning update on Tanev:

Thanks again for reading, and please give me a follow, you can find me here on Twitter/X @LOGoalz for any questions, concerns, or abuse you may want to shower me with. Have a great week people!