Dec 21: McDonagh has now been officially activated from injured reserve and will play tonight.
Dec 20: After staying up with the Nashville Predators on an emergency loan for more than two weeks, Jordan Gross has been returned to the AHL. The team had recalled him when moving Ryan McDonagh to injured reserve, and he played seven games since then.
With McDonagh returning tomorrow night against the Chicago Blackhawks and Alexandre Carrier getting back in the lineup last night, Gross is no longer needed at the NHL level.
The 33-year-old McDonagh has been out since December 2 after taking a puck to the face and is practicing with a full cage as he gets ready to return. The two-time Stanley Cup champion was averaging more than 20 minutes for the Predators when he went down, and had recorded six assists in 23 games.
While he is no longer the two-way force that dominated for the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning in his prime, McDonagh is still a very capable defender that should only strengthen a Predators team coming off a statement win over the Edmonton Oilers last night.
Coincidentally, Gross actually scored his third NHL goal in that game, as three of the four tallies from Nashville were from their defense. The 27-year-old will likely be back up at some point, should the team face any further injuries from this point.
Preds averaging only 2.5 goals per game, second worst in division? So lemme guess, Poile is gonna rectify this, by adding another offensive defenseman at the trade deadline. “You can never have too defensemen” as he once said.
So the Dman who actually adds some offense from the blue line gets sent down. This team is stupid.