In what was supposed to be a post about Alexander Edler sitting out of Wednesday night's game against the Predators with back spasms, has suddenly turned into a longer-term issue, as Edler has received word that he should undergo a procedure on his back, micro discectomy surgery, which will keep him out of the Canucks line-up indefinitely, with a clearer date to be decided after the procedure is complete. Needless to say, this is a pretty big hit to the Canucks season at the moment, as Edler has been one of the more consistent and most productive blueliners on the team.
Edler has appeared in 49 games this season with the Canucks, scoring 8 goals and adding 24 assists, ranking him 112th in the league in pool scoring, 10th among all defensemen. He was on pace to topple a career-best of 42 points, but this setback to his 2011 campaign may be enough to disrupt any thought of that. With ten weeks left in the regular season, it will be interesting to see how much of the regular season Edler will be able to participate in.
If Wayne was unclear as to who he may want to drop in the upcoming waiver draft, he may have received a clearer picture with the indefinite loss of Edler. The link that was added for the procedure suggests a minimum of six weeks of limited movement for the patient's back, so I believe he can expect that much time away after surgery, but it would likely be a little bit longer to get back into game shape, thus limiting the defender's value down the stretch.Wayne currently sits in 6th place in the standings, 10 points out of 4th place, the final money position, so he'll have to make at least this move to keep pace with the leaders. Wayne has had only an average group of defenders through the first 17 weeks of the season, now losing his best producing player will likely drop his ranking much lower in that category, which will likely hurt his chances at a money win this year.
Link to the Injury/News Page
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