Bad news for the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night, as they lost the services of forward Jussi Jokinen in their game against the Tampa Bay Lightning and it appears that he'll be out for the next 3-to-4 weeks with the injury. Jokinen reportedly suffered the injury falling over the Lightning's Ryan Shannon in the 3rd period and was not able to return to the game. The team will examine him a little bit further on Wednesday, but they do not expect the news to be much better.
Jokinen was off to a pretty good start to the season, one of the few Carolina players you could actually describe that way. In 12 games this season, Jokinen has tallied 3 goals and 6 assists, currently ranking 75th in pool scoring to this point, 3rd on the team in that regard, only behind Jeff Skinner and Cam Ward. The loss of Jokinen will likely hurt the Hurricanes going forward this season, as they rely on him for a good portion of their offense in a very high-scoring division. With the injury, the Hurricanes are looking to fill the void with young forward Drayson Bowman.
The injury will likely keep the scoring winger out of the line-up until the end of November, right around the same time that the first waiver draft of the season will roll around. I don't think this injury will be enough for Chris M. to dump Jokinen, as he is also dealing with injuries to a number of other players, which has forced his pool team down to the depths of 17th, but is in a tight group of teams, 6 points up on 20th and 6 points back of 12th. Unfortunately, the injury will likely cause a swing down in the standings, so we'll keep an eye on this.
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