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. So, on to the bad (and some good) news.

Injuries / Leaves

Aliaksei Protas / Washington Capitals – Protas (upper body) left and did not return to Saturday’s game versus the Golden Knights. Protas managed to put up 66 points last season in 76 games. The best part of those totals is that he had exactly ONE power-play point. Washington hasn’t had the extra incentive of pushing Ovechkin into NHL immortality, having broken the goalscoring record last season. Protas is a promising young player, but with the arrival of Ryan Leonard it remains to be seen if he will ever receive the power-play time needed to take the hardest step for offensive players in getting to a point per game.

Sidney Crosby / Pittsburgh Penguins – Crosby is dealing with a lower-body injury after leaving Thursday’s game versus the Senators, Josh Yohe of The Athletic reported. Crosby missed the Penguins game on Saturday versus the Stars, with his squad ultimately taking a 6-3 drubbing. Crosby has 64 points in 61 games this season, which crazy enough is currently good for the worst offensive season of his career. Insane. He’s long been one of the most consistent and productive fantasy assets, and now we look ahead to take bets on how many years before he falls below a point per game. I won’t be betting against Sid the Kid next year.

Dmitri Voronkov / Columbus Blue Jackets – Voronkov (upper body) was out of the lineup Sunday versus the Bruins, and has now missed 11 of the last 13 Blue Jackets games. He was healthy scratched for a few of them, and has been injured for the rest. The healthy scratch is indicative of the year he’s had unfortunately. The 25-year-old 6-5, 234-pound Russian was trending well in his last two seasons before seeing a dip in nearly all of his rate stats except hits and penalty minutes, the latter of which does not excite coaches whatsoever. Dropping from 0.63 PTS/GP last season to just 0.51 this year is a little concerning. Adam Fantilli had luckily picked up some slack for Columbus this year, taking another step towards proving his draft position was correct.

Sam Reinhart / Florida Panthers – Reinhart (foot) had now been absent for nine of the last 10 Panthers matchups. Almost every single rate stat for Reinhart is down slightly this season. It makes sense when you factor in who the Panthers roster has been missing for the majority of their season, having played so many games in the last two years finally catching up to lots of them. This is also seen in Reinhart's ice time, having been elevated almost a full minute on average this year.

Artyom Levshunov / Chicago Blackhawks – Levshunov (hand) wasn't in the lineup Sunday against the Devils with no timeline for his return, Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Levshunov is the future on the Blueline for Chicago, having been drafted second overall in 2024. He joins third overall pick from 2025 Anton Frondell, who just joined the team from the top Swedish league after winning the championship last season playing with, and excelling amongst men. Levshunov scored at just under a point per game in the NCAA two seasons ago, but wasn’t anything to write home about in the AHL offensively last year at just 0.42 PTS/GP. He may end up being more of a two-way guy for the Blackhawks, but he’s got all the runway in front of him that a young player needs to try and find another offensive gear.

Quarantine

Nikita Kucherov / Tampa Bay Lightning – Kucherov (illness) wasn't in the lineup against Nashville on Sunday, according to Benjamin Pierce of the Lightning’s official site. There’s not much I can say about Kucherov that you folks don’t already know, and he’s one of the best NHL players to ever do it. With 121 points in 68 games this season, he’s matching his best season PTS/GP of his career. He’s doing it at nearly 33 years old, and in the career best season that he’s currently matching, he had 53 PPP. This season? Only 35 so far. He’s found another gear at even strength somehow, when it seemed like there were no more steps to climb, he’s done just that. An absolute freak.

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!