Injury Updates: Crosby, Canadiens, Paul, Ryan

While it was looking like Penguins star center Sidney Crosby was nearing a return from his core muscle injury, it appears those plans have hit at least a small snag.  The team announced (Twitter link) that although he was scheduled to skate ahead of today’s game in Colorado, he didn’t as he wasn’t feeling well.  The veteran has yet to participate in a full team practice with contact yet so it appears he’ll miss at least another game or two.  Crosby has missed the last 26 games heading into play tonight and still is in the top ten in team scoring with 17 points in as many contests.

Other injury notes from around the league:

• After bouncing between Ottawa and their AHL affiliates over the past few years, Senators winger Nick Paul has been establishing himself as a regular player this season. However, that progress has now been derailed as head coach D.J. Smith told Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch that Paul is “done for the foreseeable future”  due a lower-body injury sustained on Tuesday.  He has already been ruled out for the next two weeks but it seems like it will be even longer now.
• Canadiens head coach Claude Julien told reporters, including TSN’s John Lu (Twitter link) that winger Paul Byron has suffered a setback as he works his way back from a knee injury and that he has yet to resume skating. Originally scheduled to be back several weeks ago, Julien acknowledged that winger Jonathan Drouin and Joel Armia are now both likely to return before Byron but that those two won’t be back until after the All-Star Game.
• Kings defenseman Joakim Ryan is expected to return to the lineup at some point on their current five-game road trip that runs through January 18th, reports Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider. He has been out with a lower-body injury since late December.  He’s currently on IR and Los Angeles has a full 23-man roster so they will need to make a roster move before they can activate him.