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. 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 is taking a leave of absence from the Oilers because of an illness in the family, the team announced Saturday. Draisaitl has been destroying the league again this year with 1.40 PPG and 36 points in his last 21 games played. The Oilers didn’t seem to miss him much on Saturday shellacking the Canucks 6-0 in their own barn.

Kris Knoblauch decided to put Jake Walman in the half-wall one-timer position that Leon occupies on the power play, but didn't quite have the same accuracy and results of Neon Leon from that particular office. An interesting decision to have Walman there in my opinion, with the likes of Isaac Howard and Matt Savoie foaming at the mouth for some offensive opportunities. Par for the course for Knoblauch, though, when it comes to youth.

Brad Marchand / Florida Panthers – Marchand (undisclosed) was placed on injured reserve Saturday, per the NHL media site. Marchand is lighting it up in the absence of Aleksander Barkov, and Matthew Tkachuk. The latter is possibly closing in on a return, and I’m certain that this team will be far better off without Anton Lundell and Sam Bennett being the only options on the top powerplay. Sam Reinhart will certainly be happy with both back in the lineup as well, having Eetu Luostarinen strapped to him at even strength as Reinhart has finally had some struggles this week in the points department.

Zayne Parekh / Calgary Flames – Parekh (upper body) was assigned to AHL in Calgary on Saturday for a conditioning loan. Parekh seems almost ready to rejoin the Flames after he tore up the world juniors, very much looking like a guy who's on his way to being adjusted to the pro game. You can almost always see it in that tournament when a player has had time in the NHL, it’s as if the junior game is a full step slower for them now, which it certainly is even in a best-on-best format.

William Nylander / Toronto Maple Leafs – Nylander (lower body) isn’t expected to play against Minnesota on Monday, according to Joshua Kloke of The Athletic. It seems as though Nylander has reaggravated his last injury that kept him out for four games. Seeing him go in and out of the lineup has been frustrating for owners, not only because he was a high pick in most drafts but because he has irrefutably been producing as such.

A total of 12 points in his last six games played and a 106-point pace on the season really has people with their head in their hands getting the injury notification every second week. Under the hood, Willy has actually seen a drop off in SOG/g this season, from 3.1 to 2.0 and an increase in S% from 17.7 to 22.7. That indicates him slowing down at some point when he does return, but if he's been doing it while injured half the season in the first place, I’m not going to be calling my bookie to ask for odds on that slow down.

Brayden Point / Tampa Bay Lightning – Point (lower body) was placed on injured reserve Friday, per the NHL media site. Point had disappointed his owners for months coming in at just 11 points and 44 SOG over his first 20 games played. Especially when you saw the rest of the Lightning lineup continuing on with their own lofty totals.

Just when Brayden had begun to turn a corner in his production (19 PTS in 17 GP), he got twisted up in front of the goal immediately after scoring another goal, and went down with a fully grown man on his leg. Point's Olympic hopes may very well be dashed, and you have to feel for the guy. With the lowered point production came a very low shooting percentage and a lowered SOG/G leading me to believe he was dealing with an upper-body injury to begin with all season. Getting Point back just before fantasy playoffs fully rested and ready to rip would be a welcome sight.

Leo Carlsson / Anaheim Ducks – Carlsson (thigh) underwent a procedure Friday to address a Morel-Lavallee lesion on his left thigh and will miss 3-5 weeks. It may benefit Carlsson's fantasy owners to see him get a bit of a break here, since he has fallen off in his point production quite steeply over the past month.

In Leo's first 21 games, he put up an amazing 28 points. In his next 23, though, he managed to make the score sheet just 15 times. The second part of those totals isn't actually terrible when you look at his points-per-game of past seasons, but when you factor in just how hot he came out of the gates and the fact that he actually led the league at one point, it's hard to see the drop off. Hopefully it's just a case of a young player adjusting to his new workload though.

Bo Horvat / New York Islanders – The Islanders announced Friday that Horvat (lower body) is unlikely to join the team on its current road trip, Andrew Gross of Newsday reported. Bo was enjoying a very tidy season on the score sheets only just having been passed by Mathew Barzal this week in points, and still staying ahead of the rookie Matthew Schaefer with 33 in 36 games played.

Bo has been pretty much sewn together with Emil Heineman this season, switching Jonathan Drouin and Kyle Palmieri in and out of the other slot. It's been a big help to his shot totals, blasting on average 3.4 SOG/GP, a total he's never seen. His shooting percentage is a bit high, but he's been a great goal scorer nearly his whole career, reaching 30 goals in three of his last four seasons.

Matt Boldy / Minnesota Wild – Boldy was placed on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury Friday, Michael Russo of The Athletic reports. The Wild have run into some struggles as of late, missing Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek deeply at the moment, not to mention Marcus Johansson. That’s 115 points this season gone from their daily lineup, and trading away some middle-of-the-lineup pieces for Quinn Hughes is starting to hurt a bit. It won't hurt enough to chalk it up as a loss, mind you.

Danila Yurov, Yakov Trenin and Vladimir Tarasenko have seen some elevated minutes at even strength, and Trenin is a monster in the hits category if you're looking. Ryan Hartman has been the benefactor of top power-play time in Boldy and JEEK's stead.

Shayne Gostisbehere / Carolina Hurricanes – Gostisbehere missed Friday and Saturday's games due to a lower-body injury. High risk, high reward this season with the Ghost Bear. He's scoring at a ridiculous 0.91 PTS/GP in the 35 games he has featured in, and is even over 2 SOG/GP on the season. The Hurricanes' power play has struggled as of late, but early on in the season Shayne put up some even more gaudy numbers when it was firing on all cylinders. Alexander Nikishin has taken over that power-play role in the meantime, pumping his value up quite a bit.

Robert Thomas / St. Louis Blues – Thomas (lower body) was designated for injured reserve Thursday and will be out for at least two weeks. Before injury, Thomas was quietly improving on his horrid start, just 13 points in his first 17 games. He had three in his last three, and 20 in his past 25 before going out. St. Louis is starting to get some guys back with Dylan Holloway returning tonight (Sunday), and Thomas may still be a decent buy low for your playoffs just before he returns in a few weeks.

Troy Terry / Anaheim Ducks – Terry (upper body) was placed on injured reserve ahead of Friday’s game against the Kings, Patrick Present of The Hockey News reports. Troy has 42 points in 43 games so far this year, and has done so with linemates such as Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Chris Kreider, and Mikael Granlund. It's always great to see guys with this sort of potential get the help they need and turn in career years.

Josh Norris / Buffalo Sabres – Norris (ribs) is week-to-week, according to Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News on Sunday. Well, Norris is back on the injured list after playing only 19 games of a possible 47 so far this season. Norris is already a certified Band-Aid Boy on Dobber's Frozen Tools and doesn't seem to be making a case to leave it any time soon.

It's an absolute shame for the guy because he’s scoring at a 0.89 PTS/g pace in the 19 games he has played which would be his career best if it held. He seems to be trying to get himself a bit healthier to no avail, since his HITS/GP are down from a back breaking 2.41 last season to just 0.32 this year. Godspeed Josh.

Linus Ullmark / Ottawa Senators – Ullmark returned to practice Friday for the first time since he was granted a leave of absence December 28, Graeme Nichols of The Hockey News reports. It's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out for Ottawa in goal, with multiple reports that Ullmark is not exactly the best friend of that dressing room.

We don't know exactly what's been happening but the Senators did sign 37-year-old James Reimer to back up for Leevi Merilainen, who just started 11 games in a row including a back-to-back. Reimer is starting today (Sunday) against Detroit after Travis Green was less than complimentary of Merilainen's six goals against on 19 shots on Saturday in a 6-5 losing effort in overtime against the Canadiens. I'd have to agree with Travis – it can't be fun losing a game like that with only 19 shots against.

Alex Lyon / Buffalo Sabres – Lyon (lower body) participated in Sunday’s practice, Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News reports. The Sabres have been handling things just fine without Lyon, who started six games in a row and eight out of their 10 from December 8 to 29, wins coming in seven of them. Buffalo has maintained a record of 6-2-1 without him, riding it out with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Colten Ellis.

This flip for Buffalo comes after Jarmo Kekalainen took over in the general manager role and all but threatened every single player's job on the roster. Nothing like the looming threat of eating soggy subs on AHL buses to kickstart a win streak when it's most needed.

Quarantine

Chris Kreider / ANA

Ondrej Palat / NJD

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