Welcome to another edition of the Fantasy Hockey Injury Report. The season is now in full swing, and so are the injuries. You can’t avoid them, but we can get a head start and plan around them. The injury report will be out every week to help you plan the rest of your fantasy hockey week. Let’s take a look at which key players are dealing with injuries. 

Artemi Panarin - New York Rangers - Winger

Injury: upper-body, day-to-day.

Rangers’ forward Artemi Panarin was held out of the lineup on Tuesday due to an upper-body injury. The team did say that the injury has been bothering the Russian superstar for the past few days, and with the All-Star break right around the corner, it makes sense to give him a couple of days off. This also means that he won’t need to attend the All-Star game this weekend, so maybe it’s a tactic to get him out of that obligation? No one knows, but the extra rest is more important than a meaningless event no one cares about.

Mike Green - Detroit Red Wings - Defence

Injury: upper-body, two weeks.

Veteran defenceman Mike Green has one again been hit by the injury bug. It looks like he will be out of the lineup for at least two weeks. If you have Green on your fantasy team, you should: A--drop him, and B--never add him again. He’s been useless all season with his eight points and minus-27 rating, yet there are still people clinging to him in deeper formats, hoping he can return to any kind of fantasy value. Just save yourself the trouble and drop him. An orange come has more value than he does.

Anthony Mantha - Detroit Red Wings - Winger

Injury: mid-body, out indefinitely.

Sticking with the Red Wings, it looks like they will be without their top winger  for at least another month. Mantha has been out for over a month now, and with head coach Jeff Blashill confirming that he will be out for another month, fantasy owners in non-keeper leagues may want to look at the possibility of dropping him. If your bench is starting to fill up with injured players, dropping him makes the most sense. It’s not something fantasy owners want to do, but it needs to happen. There is the possibility that if his condition doesn’t improve, they mat shut him down for the rest of the season. Add that risk to the fact that even if he did return, he’s returning to a team that isn’t scoring goals and is dead last in the league in every offensive category. I’m a Mantha owner myself, so it frustrates me greatly to talk about dropping a player that was on pace to have an excellent season, but sometimes, things need to be done.

William Karlsson - Vegas Golden Knights - Center

Injury: upper-body, day-to-day.

It was confirmed that William Karlsson would miss a minimum of two games, but he was not in the lineup for Vegas’ matchup against the Bruins on Tuesday, and there are some questions as to whether or not he’ll be ready to return following the break. The Golden Knights won’t play their next game until January 31, so Karlsson has ten days to get fully healthy. Couple that with the last week, the odds that he returns are high, but it’s still something fantasy owners should monitor. 

 

Dominik Kahun - Pittsburgh Penguins - Winger

Injury: concussion, out indefinitely.

Just as the Pittsburgh Penguins are starting to get healthy, they lose another player due to injury. Dominik Kahun has been diagnosed with a concussion and a timetable for his return is unknown. It’s not a massive lost, but the 24-year-old does have 27-points in 48-games this season and was skating in the top-6 regularly. At 4% ownership on Yahoo!, he was a nice buy-low candidate, but now, who knows how long it takes until he is ready to return. Maybe the break will give him the necessary time to recover, but that’s a long shot. With Guentzel out for the season and Galchenyuk unable to take advantage of his opportunities, Kahun has a shot at sticking on the top line with Crosby, which would be a huge fantasy boost. We should get an update on his status once teams return to practice in just over a week.