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.

Connor Hellebuyck / Winnipeg Jets – Hellebuyck will undergo minor arthroscopic knee surgery and will be out of action for 4-6 weeks, Darren Dreger of TSN reported on Friday. Hellebuyck's save percentage from last year will be really hard to beat, it was .925 and it won him a Vezina Trophy, not to mention the Hart Trophy as well. A .913 is what he has in his cap this year so far, even if it’s only been good for an 8-6-0 record. Add 10 quality starts in those 14 games and it may be another Vezina year on the horizon, even if he doesn’t win with 99% of the first-place votes.

Brayden Point / Tampa Bay Lightning – Point (undisclosed) did not finish Saturday’s game versus the Capitals, and head coach Jon Cooper didn’t have an update on his status after the contest, Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Point has been rotting on mine and others’ benches for almost two months now, and it’s a damned shame. Every night you open your scoring app up and see seven goals for the Lightning and you crack a smile. Your eyes scan the page and all you read is names like Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov (also injured Saturday) and Brandon Hagel with Brayden Point nowhere to be found.

Point has had only had 11 points in 21 games. Taking a look at his yearly shooting percentages will tell the story here. He’s never had a season below 14.8%, which was in his rookie season, and the last three years he has eclipsed 21%, 20%, and 22%. That’s far above league average even just comparing forwards. This year he has shot at only 6.8% and his volume is down on top of it all. Maybe he’s had something nagging him for a while?

Nikita Kucherov / Tampa Bay Lightning – Kucherov (undisclosed) left and did not return to Saturday’s game versus the Capitals, adding to the quickly growing list of star level players in the spare parts bin. Kuch had eight points in his last five games, including three points in the game he only played 5:18 before exiting. The Lightning might be in for a tough stretch if both Kucherov and Point are gone for any significant length of time, with Hedman already sitting out.

Zach Benson / Buffalo Sabres – According to Heather Engel of NHL.com, Benson (lower body) has been activated from IR to play Sunday (today) against Carolina. Benson was off to a fine start before his injury with eight points in eight games, so he is worth activating or adding. Benson has yet to score his first goal of the season, though. Isak Rosen is not on the Sabres' roster as of Sunday morning, so he appears to have been sent to the AHL to make room for Benson.

JT Miller / New York Rangers – Miller (upper body) is day-to-day and did not play on Saturday against the Utah Mammoth in the Rangers 3-2 loss. Miller is unfortunately on a 45-point pace through his first 22 games, and his hits have all but vanished as well for those of us in bangers leagues. His most common linemates have been Will Cuylle and Conor Sheary, so no one all that exciting. Remember how Chris Tanev got injured a few weeks ago? A player changing course at the blueline to stay onside. Something similar happened here.

Anthony Stolarz / Toronto Maple Leafs – Stolarz (upper body) has yet to return to the ice, Lance Hornby of The Toronto Sun reported Thursday. Joseph Woll has been filling in nicely if you want to discount Saturday’s game, where he got the hook after surrendering four goals on 25 shots to the Canadiens in Montreal Saturday night dropping his record to 1-2-1. Stolarz had put out a career worst overall save percentage so far this season at .884, but there’s plenty of time left to pull north of .900 if he can come back healthy. Woll so far has a decent .904 and quality starts in three of his four starts so far, even with the bloodletting on Saturday.

Matt Duchene / Dallas Stars – Duchene (upper body) will join the Stars for their four-game road trip, Lia Assimakopoulos of The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday. Duchene has only skated in four games this year, all in the first week of the season. Two points in those contests, so Matt will be in tough to repeat his point per game season of last year, but he’s proven me wrong a hundred times now.

Thomas Harley / Dallas Stars – Harley (lower body) will be sidelined for the Stars’ four-game road trip at least, Lia Assimakopoulos of The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday. The Stars still have games Tuesday in Edmonton and Wednesday in Seattle before that swing is over. The earliest he can return based off of the reporting is Friday the 28th at home to Ottawa, but that’s far from a sure thing at this point. Harley had a rough go of it lately, after starting the season off got and was watching Miro Heiskanen have a resurgence while he was at it.

Victor Hedman / Tampa Bay Lightning – Hedman (undisclosed) was placed on long-term injured reserve, per Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times on Saturday. No update on what the injury actually is, but John Cooper did give us a small morsel of a crumb when he confirmed that this injury is not related to the one that kept him out of the vast majority of Tampa Bay's preseason dates. The earliest Hedman could return from LTIR is December 4, so he will be out all of next week and part of the week after at the very least.

Gavin Brindley / Colorado Avalanche – Brindley (lower body) is week-to-week, Evan Rawal of the Denver Gazette reported Saturday. Brindley, taken with the Blue Jackets' 34th pick in 2023 was not a huge scorer in the AHL last year picking up only 17 points in 52 games for the Cleveland Monsters before being traded to Colorado in June. He’s got eight points in 17 games in limited minutes for the Avalanche so far, but five of them have come in the last six contests. He was beginning to see a bit of a rise in ice time right before the injury too.

Thomas Chabot / Ottawa Senators – Chabot looked to aggravate his upper-body injury in Saturday’s game versus the Sharks, Max Miller of NHL.com reports. Another bad stroke of luck for Chabot, who has missed a fairly significant number of games throughout his nine-year career to date. He’s seen a reduction in ice time with the introduction of Jordan Spence to the roster even though he’s still over 20 minutes a game. He’s right on pace for the same point totals as last year, with 45 in 80 games for a 0.46 points per game.

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!