As if the Vancouver Canucks needed another injury to a key player. Especially at the centre ice position.
On Saturday night, Elias Pettersson departed early after initially taking warm-ups. He wound up missing his first game of the season in what was supposed to be his 500th career NHL game.
With Filip Chytil and Teddy Bluefer also injured, that left the only available centres for the Canucks game against the Minnesota Wild as David Kämpf, Aatu Räty and Max Sasson.
They did have Lukas Reichel as an option, but head coach Adam Foote decided to go with Drew O’Connor down the middle instead.
Of course, with the worst quartet of centres in the league on paper, the Canucks ended up beating the Wild 4-2 at Rogers Arena on Saturday night. They got a big night from Räty, who scored his second and third goals of the season in the win.
After the game, Foote provided an update on Pettersson.
“We found out this morning that he had something upper body,” he said. “We thought he’d be okay.”
“Then we found out tonight for warm-up… it wasn’t a go for him. So, we had to adjust, and we did adjust.”
“We’ll look at some more things tomorrow. We’ll get an MRI, and we’ll see where he’s at.”
Even though the Canucks won, they can ill-afford to miss Pettersson if they want to stay competitive.