Steve Mason Injured in Practice

Monday morning at Blue Jackets practice, Rick Nash catches goalie Steve Mason up high with a shot, getting him up around the mask/throat area, which forced him to leave practice early and not return.  The official word on Mason from the team is that he is day-to-day with an upper-body injury and the team recalled goaltender Allen York on an emergency basis to back-up Curtis Sanford for tonight's game against the Calgary Flames.

The team also announced that they had sent forward Matt Calvert down to the minors, likely to make room for York for tonight's game.  Since Mason is only day-to-day, there was likely no need to put him on the injured reserve, thus forcing him to miss a week of action, so Calvert, who is a bubble player, gets sent down to make room.

Mason has appeared in 16 games this year and has struggled, as well as the team in front of him, which has given the young goalie a 3-12-1 record, giving him only 6 points in the pool, to this point in the year.  The team does look to be making a bit of a turnaround to their season, so it isn't the best time for Mason to go down with injury, but there isn't much he can do about it right now.


In the draft, Mason belongs to Kristy and Don, who will have their second goalie out for at least tonight's game and some further tests will still have to be done before they can accurately determine how long he will be out for.  As of Monday morning, the duo sat in 8th place in the standings with 156 points, 16 points out of 3rd place.  Their goaltending hasn't been great, having below-average numbers from their tandem, 22 points accumulated from the pair.