I looked back at his last few shifts in the Blackhawks game and I can see something that at is at least a plausible cause of his upper body injury.
We’ll go backwards. This is the end of the last shift he played that game.
[https://imgur.com/a/obwcEZs](https://imgur.com/a/obwcEZs)
It’s brief, but watch how he moves after passing the puck across to Borgen. He definitely hangs his left arm and seems to be nursing it a bit. Earlier in the shift he does make a pretty big reach with this right arm, so I think it’s something on his left side because of those two things.
Going back a bit earlier, he does take this hit to the left side too.
[https://imgur.com/a/TiZBW4Y](https://imgur.com/a/TiZBW4Y)
It’s not a massive hit or anything, but its right on the back of his left shoulder. He plays 2 shifts between these 2 clips, and he looks fine in the first one and perhaps a little off in the second one. Both of those shifts come before the intermission, and his first shift in the third period is the one where he nurses his arm and leaves the game.
My somewhat educated guess is he got a separated shoulder from the hit, that’s a pretty common upper body injury in contact sports and can happen from a simple fall. Probably enough force in the hit he took there to cause it. Recovery time for a grade 2 separated shoulder is \~6 weeks, which aligns with the PR statement.
But I’ve never had any shoulder/arm injuries before, so what I don’t really know is how likely you end up going back out for 2 shifts before realizing something is wrong enough that you need it looked at. Curious what people’s experiences have been if it’s happened to anyone here.
Anyways, just speculation on my part, all we can really do until the season ends and they tell us what it was — if they even do that.