During the 2014-15 regular season the Jets were a banged up bunch (according to a site which tracks this stat they finished in the middle of the league for man games lost). Heading into the playoffs we now know that Winnipeg was dealing with “eight significant injuries, four of which happened in this (Ducks) series” according to head coach Paul Maurice.
In the exit interviews conducted last Friday, Andrew Ladd and Jacob Trouba confirmed they were playing injured. The captain sustained a sports hernia sometime in December and the Jets sophomore defenceman acknowledged that he had broken a bone in his left hand which he sustained in game 2. According to Trouba he was only able to “grip my stick with two fingers” after the hand injury. The twenty-one year old defenceman still averaged 18 minutes of ice time in games 3 and 4.
Later that day Coach Maurice, when meeting with the media for his final presser of the season, confirmed that Dustin Byfuglien and Bryan Little were both dealing with dislocated ribs. He also indicated that Mathieu Perreault was dealing with a high-turned-low ankle sprain and then a torn tendon in his hand which occurred during the Ducks series.
Photo Credit: Rodney Braun
On Tuesday the Jets revealed that Tobias Enstrom and Adam Pardy had both undergone successful shoulder surgery and were expected to be ready for training camp.
This left us with one mystery injured player. According Darren Dreger (as tweeted by Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun) it was revealed to be Mark Stuart.
Looks like @DarrenDreger identified D Mark Stuart as one of the injured #NHLJets so that should solve the mystery of the eight injuries
— Ken Wiebe (@WiebeSunSports) April 28, 2015
Now we don’t know the nature of the injury to #5 but that would make up the eight players that coach Maurice had indicated were among the walking wounded for Winnipeg during the playoffs.
Quite the laundry list of injuries and it didn’t go unnoticed by Anaheim. Elliotte Friedman in his 30 Thoughts column yesterday wrote that the Ducks “could see how injured they (Jets) were after Game 1”.
