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Sean Kuraly Cleared After Scary Injury

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Sean Kuraly is reportedly doing okay after suffering an abdominal injury that led him to collapse behind the Columbus Blue Jackets bench on Saturday night. The 30-year-old forward was transported to the local Grant Medical Center for further evaluation and avoided being admitted. Kuraly’s scary injury brought a premature end to the first period of the Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs matchup.

Kuraly has appeared in 35 games with Columbus this season, recording 11 points and 28 penalty minutes. The centerman is in his third season with the Blue Jackets, who signed him as an unrestricted free agent ahead of the 2021-22 campaign. Kuraly joined Columbus on a four-year, $10MM contract, making him the fourth-most expensive forward on the Blue Jackets roster, and the second-most expensive of all healthy forwards with Patrik Laine, Jack Roslovic, and Boone Jenner on injured reserve. Kuraly has appeared in 183 career games with the Blue Jackets, scoring 61 points, recording 157 penalty minutes, and setting a -28. This stat line combines with five seasons with the Boston Bruins to bring Kuraly’s career totals to 129 points and 291 penalty minutes in 453 games.

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Blue Jackets Activate Damon Severson, Place Nick Blankenburg On IR

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The Blue Jackets will welcome a key defenseman back for their game tonight against Toronto but they’re also losing a blueliner.  The team announced that Damon Severson has been activated off injured reserve.  To make room on the roster, Nick Blankenburg has been placed on IR retroactive to December 19th.

Severson was a key addition for Columbus over the summer who acquired him in a sign-and-trade deal from New Jersey on an eight-year, $50MM contract.  Despite the Blue Jackets’ struggles, Severson got off to a decent start with his new team, recording three goals and five assists in his first 19 games with the team while averaging just under 21 minutes per night before suffering a strained oblique roughly five weeks ago which caused him to miss the last 15 games.  He’ll slot right back into their top four versus the Maple Leafs and should see time on both the power play and penalty kill as well.

As for Blankenburg, the 25-year-old has spent most of the season in the minors with AHL Cleveland in his final season of waiver exemption and has three goals and eight assists in 19 games with the Monsters.  He was recalled earlier this month and saw action in six games where he was held off the scoresheet while averaging just under 18 minutes per contest.  Blankenburg is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury and with the placement being back-dated, he could be activated as soon as Wednesday’s game against New Jersey.

Nick Blankenburg Out With A Lower Body Injury

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The Minnesota Wild have announced that forward Ryan Hartman will miss tonight’s game with an upper-body injury. Hartman’s injury is a microcosm of the kind of season it has been for the Wild this year. The 29-year-old spent roughly two weeks toiling on the Wild’s fourth line, only to get moved up in the lineup where he scored goals in back-to-back games before falling to this latest injury.

The Wild are dealing with injuries to key players at the moment as defensemen Jonas Brodin, Jared Spurgeon are out, as is forward Mats Zuccarello. Despite the injury troubles, the Wild have been playing solid hockey under new head coach John Hynes as the team is 8-3 since he took over being the bench after a shaky 5-10-4 start to the season under former head coach Dean Evason.

In other evening notes:

  • Aaron Portzline of The Athletic is reporting that Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Nick Blankenburg isn’t playing tonight due to an upper-body injury. The Washington, Michigan native has dressed in six games this season for Columbus and has yet to register a point. He was recalled earlier this month after spending the first two months of the season with the Blue Jackets AHL affiliate and dressed in 36 games last season for Columbus, tallying four goals and ten assists.
  • The Colorado Avalanche have announced that defenseman Cale Makar will return to the lineup after missing the last three games with a lower-body injury. The former Norris Trophy winner was considered a game-time decision but after taking warmup with the team it appears the decision was made for the 25-year-old to play against the Ottawa Senators. Makar has eight goals and 29 assists this season in just 27 games and will give a much-needed boost to the Avalanche team that has lost seven of their last 11 games.

Metropolitan Notes: Severson, Roslovic, Daws, Hinostroza

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Blue Jackets defenseman Damon Severson will likely make his return from an oblique injury before Christmas, Columbus team reporter Jeff Svoboda relayed Wednesday. Severson, who remains on injured reserve, has missed just over a month since sustaining the injury in a November 19 contest against the Flyers, putting him well ahead of his predicted six-week return timeframe.

The 29-year-old blueliner is in his first season in Columbus after the Blue Jackets acquired his signing rights from the Devils just days before free agency opened last summer, promptly signing him to an eight-year, $50MM deal. Through his first 19 games, he’d given Columbus the level of play we’ve been accustomed to seeing from him over the past few seasons, notching eight points and a +1 rating while logging nearly 21 minutes per game. He remains in first place among Blue Jackets defenders with a 52% Corsi share at even strength, nearly four percentage points higher than second-place Zach Werenski’s 48.1% mark. While playoffs again are out of the question for a Blue Jackets squad that’s six games below the .500 mark, Severson has been off to a strong start and looks to be an important piece of the team’s defense for the next few seasons.

Svoboda also reported that center Jack Roslovic, who is sidelined with a leg injury, won’t return until after Christmas. Roslovic, 26, is also on injured reserve and has missed 18 games with an ankle fracture.

While the Blue Jackets are at a full 23-player active roster, Severson could be activated during the current roster freeze without a corresponding transaction since it would not affect their cap hit. The Blue Jackets could wait to send down a player to be roster-compliant until December 28, when the freeze lifts.

Other notes from the Metropolitan Division today:

  • The Devils assigned goalie Nico Daws to the AHL’s Utica Comets Wednesday morning, a team release states. The team promoted Daws from the minors on Sunday with Vítek Vaněček out with an undisclosed injury, but he did not see any playing time, and Vaněček returned to action last night. Daws, 22, missed the first two months of the season after undergoing offseason hip surgery and has been stellar in his return to play with the Comets, posting a .937 SV% and 2.04 GAA in two contests.
  • After clearing waivers a few days back, the Penguins waited to assign winger Vinnie Hinostroza to the minors until yesterday. It was a short-lived move, as Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports reports Hinostroza is back on the NHL roster today. The 29-year-old has a goal and two assists in 13 games with the Penguins this season, his first in Pittsburgh.

Damon Severson Returns To Practice

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  • The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that defenseman Damon Severson has returned to practice this morning. Severson has been out exactly a month today with an oblique injury, having not played since the team’s November 19th game against the Philadelphia Flyers. Still on schedule with a six-week recovery timeline, Severson has been quite a boon for Columbus’ blue line this season, scoring three goals and eight points in 19 games averaging just under 21 minutes a night.

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Blue Jackets Place Patrik Laine On Injured Reserve, Recall Brendan Gaunce

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The Blue Jackets have placed forward Patrik Laine on injured reserve retroactive to December 14, per a team release. In a corresponding transaction, the team recalled forward Brendan Gaunce from AHL Cleveland under emergency conditions.

The team already announced Laine was expected to miss six weeks of action after sustaining a clavicle fracture in Thursday’s game against the Maple Leafs. The move does not change his timeline for a return and is purely for roster management purposes.

2023-24 is quickly becoming a season to forget for Laine. This is now the third time he’ll be held out of the lineup for an extended period of time this year, missing nine games near the beginning of the season with an upper-body injury and missing three games earlier this month due to illness. He was also made a healthy scratch for a game against the Flyers on November 19, bringing his absence total to 14 out of Columbus’ 32 games this season.

When in the lineup, Laine has been a shell of the near-point-per-game player he’s been over the last two seasons in Columbus. He’s scored just six goals and nine points in 18 games on the season, and his ice time has dipped to a career-low 15:13 per game under first-year head coach Pascal Vincent.

Gaunce comes up to the NHL on his first recall of the season. The 29-year-old minor-league veteran was in the later rounds of the Blue Jackets’ cuts from training camp and cleared waivers in early October.

The 2012 first-round pick does have over 150 games of NHL experience dating back to his debut with the Canucks in the 2015-16 campaign. He made a quick stop in Boston and spent one season overseas with the Swedish Hockey League’s Växjö Lakers before arriving in Columbus in 2021. Since then, he’s primarily served as a top-six option for Cleveland, racking up 61 points in 80 AHL games over the past three seasons. So far this season, he ranks third on the team in scoring, with six goals and 15 points in 24 games. Slated for unrestricted free agency next summer, Gaunce will serve as the team’s 13th forward for the time being and is unlikely to draw into the lineup tomorrow against the Sabres.

Patrik Laine Sidelined For Six Weeks

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have announced that forward Patrik Laine suffered a clavicle fracture in last night’s 6-5 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The fracture happened in the second period when Laine fell to the ice and crashed into the boards to the left of the Maple Leafs net. He skated off the ice holding his left shoulder and exited the game.

This year has been one to forget for the 25-year-old as he has just six goals and three assists in 18 games thus far this season and is a -10. Laine hasn’t been as dynamic in Columbus as he was during his time with the Winnipeg Jets, but he has been close to a point-a-game player the last two seasons.

Despite putting up good numbers before this year, this is not the first time Laine has missed significant time. Laine was out of the lineup for nine games earlier this season after he suffered an upper-body injury. He also missed an additional three games this month due to an illness. Last season, Laine missed 24 games due to a variety of injuries as well as an additional two games when he had COVID-19.

Moreover, Laine was a healthy scratch about a month ago in what he called, “the most embarrassing thing to happen to me.”

Columbus Blue Jackets Activate Elvis Merzļikins

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have announced that netminder Elvis Merzļikins has been activated off of injured reserve. Merzļikins has missed the team’s last three games with an illness. The activation positions Merzļikins to be the starter for the Blue Jackets’ game tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Merzļikins’ return comes at an important time for the Blue Jackets. Despite significant offseason additions, the Blue Jackets have struggled immensely this season. Their on-ice issues have caused the team’s hockey operations decision-makers to come under significant outside pressure. With the team still mired in last place in the Metropolitan division, the return of Merzļikins can potentially give the franchise a much-needed lift.

The 29-year-old Latvian netminder is entrenched as the team’s starter, in large part due to his contract. He’s set to cost $5.4MM against the cap each season through 2026-27. But while that cap hit might be the most significant factor securing his spot as the Blue Jackets’ unquestioned number-one goalie, his performance this year has also done him favors. In 19 games, Merzļikins currently has a .910 save percentage, which is a massive improvement from the .876 mark he posted last season.

In 2022-23, the argument could be made that Merzļikins was the worst-performing regular netminder in the entire NHL. This season, no such arguments can be made as Merzļikins now boasts an above-average save percentage. Although the playoffs seem to be out of reach for the Blue Jackets, barring a miracle, Merzļikins’ return can help Columbus remain competitive on a more regular basis.

Merzlikins Returned To Practice, Still Out With Illness

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  • Although he is still on the team’s injured reserve due to an illness, Brian Hedger for the Columbus Dispatch reports that goaltender for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Elvis Merzlikins returned to practice with the team today. Largely the most competent goalie on the Blue Jackets this season, Merzlikins holds a 6-8-4 record in 19 starts, carrying a .910 SV% and a 3.10 GAA.

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Erik Gudbranson Receives One-Game Suspension

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The NHL has handed down its second suspension within the last hour, announcing (video link) that Blue Jackets defenseman Erik Gudbranson has received a one-game ban for acting as the aggressor with Panthers winger Nick Cousins on Sunday.

While chasing a loose puck in the third period, Cousins hit Gudbranson from behind, sending Gudbranson face-first into the boards.  Cousins was initially given a major penalty for his hit but it was dropped to a minor after review, keeping him in the game.  Six minutes later, Gudbranson responded by going after Cousins, throwing him to the ice following a zone entry and then throwing several punches.  He received a minor penalty on the play for instigating along with a five-minute fighting major, and a game misconduct.

Gudbranson will miss Thursday’s game against Toronto and will forfeit $20.8K.  The money will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

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