The injury and COVID-riddled Penguins have been without center Evgeni Malkin all season as he works his way back from offseason knee surgery. Speaking with Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, GM Ron Hextall indicated that the 35-year-old has been skating basically daily and is on track in his recovery. However, despite that promising news, the team is unable to provide an update on how much longer Malkin will be out of the lineup. The original announcement was that he’d miss the first two months of the season at a minimum so an updated timeline may still be a couple of weeks away.
Other injury notes from around the NHL:
- Devon Toews could be making his return to Colorado’s lineup soon as Niki Ardebili of the Avalanche’s team site notes that the hope is that the blueliner will be activated and make his season debut on Saturday against Columbus. Toews averaged just shy of 25 minutes a game last season for the Avs and would be a timely addition to their back end with Cale Makar now on IR.
- The Predators have listed (Twitter link) winger Filip Forsberg as week-to-week with an upper-body injury. The veteran suffered the injury in the third period of Tuesday’s game versus Calgary. Forsberg is in the final year of his contract and is eligible for unrestricted free agency this coming summer so an extended absence certainly wouldn’t help his value. The 27-year-old was off to a nice start before the injury with seven points in nine games to start his season.
- Flyers defenseman Ryan Ellis has been ruled out of their next two games, relays Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia. Originally hoped to not miss any time, this will be the sixth and seventh games that the 30-year-old has missed as a result of his lower-body injury.
I don’t think PHR usually opens for business until 10 EST, so…Eichel to VGK for Tuch, Krebs, a 1st and a 3rd.
I could make strong arguments for how either side won the deal, so…seems like a good trade.