Green Out With Ankle Injury

On Saturday night, the Washington Capitals are expecting to be without their star defenseman Mike Green for a second straight game with a "wonky ankle." Green missed Thursday night's game in Edmonton against the Oilers and is now expected to miss the game against the Canucks, but what little indication we have about this injury is saying that the injury is not considered to be long-term.

With this new ankle injury and the number of injuries he has now suffered over the last couple of seasons, I am about ready to throw the All-Star defenseman into the injury prone category, for high risk and high reward purposes.  He'll be added to the annual list in the off-season, for sure.

Talking about a high reward player, Green has 3 goals and 3 assists in the first seven games of the season, which currently has him ranked 15th among defensemen in pool scoring this season, so he has done well in the early part of the year, but this ankle injury, shrouded in mystery, will put a damper on that very quickly.

Injuries in the 2011 season limited the offensive force to only 49 games with the Capitals, where he picked up 8 goals and 16 assists in the process, which is well down from what we had seen the two seasons previous.  A new outlook on the 2012 season is supposed to be a bounce back year for the 25-year old, but this ankle injury injects a little bit of doubt into that.

In the draft, Green belongs to Leon G., who is not having a great week in Week Four, ranking among the bottom three teams in weekly scoring with only 8 points and the loss of Green for the weekend will keep him in the race for Basement Dweller of the week, if his pace keeps up.

Going into Saturday's action, Leon sits in 14th spot, 3 points back of 13th and 2 points up on 15th, which should be his immediate worry today.  As of right now, he is currently 20 points back of 3rd place and 27 back of 1st place.