Welcome to another edition of the Fantasy Hockey Injury Report. Every week, we will discuss some key injuries around the league and how they may affect your fantasy hockey team.  It’s never easy to deal with the injury bug, but it doesn’t have to be the demise of your fantasy hockey team. Let’s take a look at who’s dealing with what this week!

 

Trevor Zegras - Anaheim Ducks - Lower-body

Trevor Zegras has missed the last 4 games due to a lower-body injury and the team has since moved him to IR. The young winger is off to a terrible start--collecting two points in 12 games-- and the timing of this injury is just unfortunate. We don’t know how serious the injury is, but we do know that it will keep him out of the lineup for at least the next two weeks. At this point of the season, if you can’t stash him on IR and need the roster spot, you can drop him and look for a replacement. 

Tage Thompson - Buffalo Sabres - Upper-body

Tage Thompson is expected to miss multiple weeks after suffering an upper-body injury. The elite centreman left Tuesday’s game and was unable to return and the team followed up by saying he was going to miss some time. Right now, he is considered week-to-week, which is actually a positive because it could have been a lot worse. This is a tough blow for the team and fantasy owners because you can’t just replace a player like Thompson. All that is left to do is for the team to place him on IR and for fantasy managers to stash him until we get another update. There’s a real chance that we won’t see him return before the New Year.

Igor Shesterkin - New York Rangers - Lower-body  **UPDATE**

Igor Shesterkin has now missed the last four games in a row and we still don’t have a timetable for his return. The team continues to say that he is day-to-day, but that really doesn’t seem to be the case. The Rangers haven’t played since Sunday and their next game is Saturday, so maybe they are just giving their star goalie some extra rest. The expectation is that he plays on the weekend against New Jersey, but that is still up in the air. Look for another update from the team on his condition. 

Evgeni Malkin - Pittsburgh Penguins - Illness

Evgeni Malkin was not at practice Wednesday due to illness and his status for Thursday’s game against New Jersey is still up in the air. The veteran forward is off to a smoking-hot start to the year--scoring eight goals and adding nine assists in 14 games-- and is playing some of his best hockey. If his energy is good enough to play, then he will, but the team may elect to give him some extra rest and have him closer to 100% for their back-to-back games over the weekend. The good news is, the illness doesn’t seem too serious so he won’t be missing an extended period of time.

Darcy Kuemper - Washington Capitals - Undisclosed

It has not been a great start to the year for Darcy Kuemper. He has missed time with two separate injuries already and he was forced to be helped off the ice at Wednesday’s practice after getting hit with a shot. The veteran netminder has three wins on the season and a .892 SV%. The Capitals are trying to stay competitive in the Metropolitan Division but they may have to do it without their starting goalie. We don’t know how serious the injury is, so maybe it’s something that keeps him out of the lineup for a game, but it’s still concerning to see the injury-prone goalie get hurt this many times in such a short period.