The Detroit Red Wings have swapped forward on injured reserve, activating Patrick Kane and shelving J.T. Compher. Kane has missed Detroit’s last five games with an upper-body injury. He was moved to injured reserve on January 27th, retroactive to his last game on the 21st. Meanwhile, Compher has been nursing his own upper-body injury ever since taking a high hit from Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Emil Martinsen Lilleberg on January 25th. Lilleberg was suspended for two games for the hit, while Compher will miss his fourth consecutive game on Sunday. Both Kane and Compher traveled with the team on their two-game road trip to the Pacific Northwest, but it could be a long while before Compher returns to the ice. He is currently listed as out indefinitely, per Rotowire.
With this news, Detroit receives back the all-offense, no-defense style of Kane. The future Hall-of-Famer ranks fifth on the team in scoring with 11 goals and 30 points in 42 games. That’s an 82-game pace of 52 points, continuing Kane’s gradual decline in scoring after scoring at a 77-point pace last season (47 points in 50 games) and netting 57 points in the year before. Despite ranking near the top of the team in scoring this year, Kane has also posted a dismal -11 and 2.90 xGA/60 (expected goals-against per-60), ranking him second-worst on the team in both categories per Evolving Hockey.
Detroit has often offset Kane’s near-total lack of defense with the stout two-way play of Compher, who has 21 points in 48 games of his own this year. Compher has also recorded a +4, which leads all Detroit forwards and ranks second on the team to Simon Edvinsson’s +13. He has been a stalwart centerman in the Red Wings’ middle-six, clearly benefiting from the addition of Andrew Copp to help shoulder responsibility in the middle lane. Compher has averaged nearly 17 minutes of ice time this year, nearly three minutes fewer than he averaged through the last two seasons. But the decreased minutes hardly indicate a decreased role, with Compher still serving time on both special teams and a go-to option in odd-man situations.
The Wings have so far promoted Michael Rasmussen to fill Compher’s tough minutes – to good effect. Rasmussen has two points and a +2 through his last five games, while averaging stout third-line minutes behind Copp and Dylan Larkin. Rasmussen has scored 15 points in 51 games on the year, putting him on pace for just 24 points – his lowest since the 2020-21 campaign. An extended absence for Compher could set Rasmussen up to boost his scoring up, though he’ll need to do it while commanding the team’s second power-play unit and handling tough, top-nine minutes.