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

Leon Draisaitl / Edmonton Oilers – Draisaitl (knee) sat out the last 14 games of the season for Edmonton, who did fairly well without him. He's obviously a guy you don't want to be missing once the playoffs roll around though, and all signs are pointing to him making his return on Monday night in Edmonton against the Ducks. In seven seasons of playoff hockey, Leon has amassed 141 points through 96 games. That's a 1.47 PTS/G clip, which is pretty wild to achieve in playoff hockey, where guys are known to ratchet up the intensity quite a bit. Draisaitl is well known for playing through injury, and has done so for a good chunk of those playoff games he participated in, so I would not bet against the man even if he's not at 100 percent yet.

Jason Dickinson / Edmonton Oilers – Dickinson (lower body) was skating with the team and taking line rushes at their morning practice on Sunday before they open their series against Anaheim at home on Monday night. Dickinson will take over the third-line center role if he returns Monday night, bumping Adam Henrique to the fourth line, which puts Josh Samanski on the shelf for Game 1.

Victor Hedman / Tampa Bay Lightning – Hedman (personal) has resumed skating and is back with his teammates, but it’s unclear when he will be ready to return to the lineup, according to Pierre LeBrun of TSN on Saturday. Hedman missed the last seven regular season contests for the Lightning, so he will be itching to get back out there as soon as he can. He's seemingly "over the hill" as they say, with only 17 points in 33 games played, notably losing the top power play to the likes of the season long red hot Darren Raddysh.

Artem Zub / Ottawa Senators – Zub sustained an undisclosed injury during Game 1 against Carolina on Saturday, but head coach Travis Green didn’t have an update on his status after the game, per Cory Lavalette of the North State Journal. Zub, who played nearly 21 minutes a night for the Senators throughout the regular season, managed to put up a career high in points with 30 in 81 games played. He played most of his minutes on the top pairing alongside Jake Sanderson, so the Senators will be sorely missing him if he can't get back into the lineup sooner than later.

William Karlsson / Vegas Golden Knights – Karlsson (lower body) isn’t expected to participate in the 2026 postseason unless Vegas manages a long playoff run, general manager Kelly McCrimmon said Friday, per Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Karlsson has only played in 14 games for the Golden Knights this season, continuing his run of just over a point per game from 2024-25 with 0.55 PTS/G this season. The once stud for this roster after being acquired during Vegas' inaugural season, helping them on their fairytale run, has fallen off quite hard from his 78 points in 82 games that year of 2017-18. Closest he's come since then is 60 in 70 in 2023-24.

Jared McCann / Seattle Kraken – McCann underwent a procedure Thursday for his lower-body injury, per Mike Benton of the Kraken Audio Network. After an already injury riddled season for McCann, it’s now over. He performed about as expected, right in line with his career averages outside of a 17% shooting stat. The Kraken have had another disappointing season, missing the playoffs by over 10 points. Seattle desperately needs some star power.

Quarantine / Healthy Scratches

N/A

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