While Blue Jackets forward Alexandre Texier was originally expected to miss four weeks with a finger injury (a time period that has come and gone), Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch reports (Twitter link) that the 22-year-old is still a few weeks away from returning. Texier is having the best season of his career so far with 11 goals and nine assists in 36 games but this injury will have taken away that momentum.
Texier has found his name in recent trade speculation with teams calling about him but the injury won’t help things on that front either. On that front, Hedger adds in a follow-up tweet that the team has no interest in moving him. He has long been viewed as a future building block for the Blue Jackets and since he has shown some promising signs in his development this season, it’s understandable that they’d want to keep him around.
More from the Metropolitan:
- Prior to their game this afternoon against Washington, the Flyers announced (Twitter link) that they’ve activated winger Joel Farabee and center Derick Brassard off injured reserve. Farabee has missed a little more than a month due to an upper-body injury but is still tied for third on Philadelphia in goals with 11 in 33 games. Brassard, meanwhile, has been battling hip issues all season long but has managed to pick up 11 points in 20 games. If Brassard can stay healthy, he could be a trade candidate for a team looking to add some depth before the trade deadline. Meanwhile, Sam Carchidi of Philly Hockey Now adds that center Kevin Hayes could return late next week after being out for more than a month with an adductor injury.
- While Washington has very limited cap space that’s entirely based on Anthony Mantha’s LTIR placement, both J.J. Regan and Andrew Gillis of NBC Sports Washington believe that the Capitals need to find a way to add an impact goaltender by next month’s trade deadline. Vitek Vanecek is currently injured and while Ilya Samsonov was able to play this afternoon despite appearing to suffer an injury in the warmup, he has struggled with inconsistency this season. They’ve been previously linked to Chicago’s Marc-Andre Fleury but would likely need to get Chicago to retain half of his $7MM contract plus a third-party facilitator to take on another 25% of the contract to have a chance at fitting him into their cap structure.