Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening! Welcome back to the Injury Ward. My name is Logan Clarkson and every Wednesday and Sunday I will be taking 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. At the end of the article is the Quarantine section, where any players out due to illness will be listed. As always I’d like to thank every single one of you for reading. Now, on to the bad (and some good) news.

Injuries / Leaves

Leon Draisaitl / Edmonton Oilers – Draisaitl (lower body) will miss the remainder of the 2025-26 regular season, the team announced Tuesday. Massive blow to the Oilers, and any fantasy team lucky (or unlucky) enough to have him on their roster. The Oilers are fighting for the last playoff spots in the west, and could obviously use the generational talent. What makes it even more concerning, is that Leon is known as someone who will play through just about any sort of injury meaning he’s really bunged up this time. Leon was continuing with business as usual this season, matching his point pace from 2024-25 exactly at 122 points over 82 games. At 42 powerplay points on the year so far, there’s an argument to be made that his owners have already received full value for this man before the injury. A terribly bad break at the start of fantasy playoffs of course, but think of the good times you’ve already had! *Ducks under barrage of tomatoes*

Sidney Crosby / Pittsburgh Penguins – Crosby (lower body) will return tonight for the Penguins' game against the Hurricanes. Crosby has been missing since sustaining an injury in the Olympics. He's slightly ahead of the four-week timetable he was given, and the hope is he's not pushing to return too early. 

Joel Eriksson Ek / Minnesota Wild – Eriksson Ek (lower body) didn’t suit up Tuesday in Chicago and he is expected to miss at least three games with this injury, general manager Bill Guerin told Michael Russo of The Athletic. I drafted Joel with one of my 12 picks in the first four rounds of my main league this season hoping that he could recapture some of his magnificence from 2023-24 after a pretty doo doo year in 2024-25. It didn’t work out very well for me, dropping him this week to get some extra games from my roster. He has managed to improve on his point pace a bit, up to 0.69 PTS/GP but his peripherals have taken a hit across the board and his blocks specifically have fallen off a cliff. Add all that to his streaky point production and it’s not a great recipe for help winning head to head match ups consistently. 

Adrian Kempe / Los Angeles Kings – Kempe (lower body) was a last minute scratch on Monday night after taking warm ups. He’s listed as day to day, and we should get more info on his availability for Thursday’s match up during the morning skate the day of the game. Kempe has always been an attractive option to me in fantasy, he’s the main man in Los Angeles, he shoots a lot, and he hits the back of the net consistently. Targeting players who pile up shots is never a bad strategy, even if his shot rates have dropped slightly over the last two seasons, he’s still their top trigger man. The small drop in production can be chalked up to an absolutely dismal power play for the Kings this season, with Kempe only factoring in on 10 power play tallies to date. Panarin can certainly help this situation once things get settled and they come up with a strategy that works for them. 

Shayne Gostisbehere / Carolina Hurricanes – Gostisbehere (lower body) missed his fifth straight game on Tuesday against Columbus. The Canes ultimately fell to the Jackets 5-1, with Columbus pushing the pace for most of the game. If you look up high risk high reward in a dictionary, you might just find this guy under examples. Unfortunately he’s only been able to feature in 45 games for the Canes so far this season, but he has managed 43 points during that game time. It’s his best career pace, and the next closest was in his third season in 2017-18 for the Flyers when he put up 0.81 PTS/GP. He’s also over 2.0 SOG/GP this season, and will get you about a block a game as well. Selfishly, I wouldn’t mind him staying on the shelf until next week since he’s currently on one of my opponents IR's in the semi finals. 

Yaroslav Askarov / San Jose Sharks – Askarov (lower body) missed his fourth game in a row on Tuesday at Edmonton. He’s still listed as day to day, and Alex Nedeljkovic will continue to get the net in his absence. Askarov only has an 0.887 SV% in 40 GP so far this year, but he does have 17 QS to show for his efforts. He’s a great puck moving goalie, and his lackluster numbers are more a product of bad defensive play with such a thin Sharks Blueline on a good day. San Jose has some pretty exciting years ahead of them with the likes of Celebrini, Smith and Misa, but they’re going to have to figure something or a few somethings on the back end still to really turn into a contender. 

Quarantine

Alex Tuch / BUF, 

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