The Blue Jackets expect captain Boone Jenner to be out for a while.
“It’s not short-term,” coach Dean Evanson said.
Jenner was last on the ice with 17:56 left in the second period of Columbus’ 2-1 shootout road win over the Seattle Kraken on Nov. 11. It was unclear how he hurt himself, but the club called it an upper-body injury.
“I don’t know exactly when (the injury) occurred,” Evason said, “but it was in the game.”
The Blue Jackets have grown somewhat accustomed to playing without Jenner. Since the 2022-23 season, the forward has appeared in just 168 of a possible 262 games. Last year, he missed nearly five months after having shoulder surgery during training camp before returning in late February and playing in 26 games.
That does not make this latest absence any easier for Evason to deal with.
“We’ve got a lot of leaders in that room, and obviously Boone is a huge part of our group, our identity, all those things,” Evason said. “He drives our work ethic, no question, but we have other guys who do that as well. … We’ll miss him, sure. When you have a guy like that come out of your lineup, you need people to step up, and we have no doubt that people will.”
Jenner has three goals and seven assists in 16 games this season.