From last week’s list of seven players out due to injury only Skyler McKenzie has re-joined his Moose teammates back on the ice for practice. As if the laundry list of players missing due to injury wasn’t significant enough two more important pieces of the puzzle were added to the infirmary:
Photo Credit: Colby Spence & Dave Mahussier
Heading into this past Friday night’s tilt against the Toronto Marlies, prospect C.J. Suess (Jets 2015 5th round pick) was on a bit of a roll for the Moose scoring two goals in the last two road games in California. He had gone the previous 13 games without a goal after scoring six in his first 10 games. Overall he has eight goals and four assists in 26 games during his rookie campaign. During a post-whistle scrum he ended up at the bottom of a pile and left the game clearly in some distress with an upper-body injury. Today in speaking to Moose coach Pascal Vincent the news was not good as he indicated “It’s gonna be months. But I don’t know how long exactly but it is not going to be soon. He is seeing a doctor today who will look at the X-rays to see how long it is going to take and whether it is going to need surgery.” The Minnesota product has centred both the first and second lines this season (except for opening game of season) and really plays a solid 200 foot game which is an element that will certainly be missed by the team.
The other injury occurred on Saturday in the rematch with the Marlies at Bell MTS Place during a rather harmless looking collision which ended with a Marlies forward partially landing on the leg of Emile Poirier. Coach Vincent advised me today that Poirier “Broke his leg. As much as it sounds bad it was a good fracture to have as it wasn’t the bigger bone. Depending if there are any complications we’re looking at six weeks.” Poirier was a first round pick of the Calgary Flames in 2013 and has three goals and five assists in 22 games for Manitoba this season and had been showing some really nice chemistry with fellow Quebecer Alexis D’Aoust.
Updates on the other seven injured Moose players from Coach Vincent:
1) Nic Kerdiles – nothing new.
2) Tucker Poolman (Concussion) – Up and down. Good days, bad days. There is no timeline for him. Waiting for a few good days in a row so we can re-evaluate.
3) J.C. Lipon (Upper-body) – Skated this morning. After Christmas should be back.
4) Seth Griffith (Lower-body) – There are some hopes that he will improve this week. May be a player this weekend but that’s pushing it.
5) Ryan White – Possible for this weekend. Not likely but possible.
6) Luke Green (Concussion) – Same as Poolman. Good days, bad days. Unlikely for this weekend.
7) Skyler McKenzie (Concussion) – He is going to re-test on Wednesday and we’ll go from there. He might be a player this weekend.
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