Morning Training Camp Injury Notes (Sep 25)

A real cause for concern in Ottawa, as one of their top forwards, Mark Stone, has reportedly suffered a concussion in training camp and the team is currently keeping a close eye on him, as we start heading towards preseason action and the regular season.  The Senators are claiming that he is day-to-day with the head injury, but with any sort of concussion, he will have to go through the league's protocol, which will keep him out of action for at least a week.

Stone was the 36th ranked forward in last season's scoring, picking up 61 points in 75 games and now he is slowly making his way towards the injury prone list with this concussion.  The kid has all kinds of talent, but the risk is certainly getting up there for his hockey pool value.

Reports are showing this morning that Mikael Backlund has returned to Calgary from the 2016 World Cup, where he was playing for Sweden, to deal with a concussion he suffered in the tournament. Already on the injury prone list, Backlund has been known to be a health risk for us poolies and he is certainly not off to a great start for the 2017 season.  There has been no word on the suspected severity of the head injury, but this should really put a damper on his overall value this season.

Last season, he was starting to come back around, playing in all 82 games for the Flames and picking up 47 points in the process, ranking 99th among all forwards.

The Islanders are keeping a close eye on defenseman Johnny Boychuk, who missed out on Saturday's practice with an upper-body injury and it appears that he may miss some more time with the injury.  The 32-year old has become a strong fixture on the blueline in Brooklyn and is a pretty big piece to their puzzle.  I don't imagine that the Islanders will be rushing him back at the moment, as we're still more than two weeks away from the start of the regular season, but this is something we should be keeping a close eye on.

With 25 points in 70 games last season, Boychuk was ranked 62nd among all defensemen in scoring and does have some potential to do better.  His current projections, however, keep him level at the 25-point mark for the coming season.