It has been a rough first few weeks for the Blue Jackets on the injury front. Boone Jenner might not play this season, Dmitri Voronkov has yet to play, and Erik Gudbranson could be facing a longer-term absence, among others.
Now, Kent Johnson can be added to that list. Speaking after practice today, head coach Dean Evason told reporters including Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch (Twitter link) that the upper-body injury for Johnson is not expected to be a short-term issue. While he has not yet been placed on injured reserve, that is expected to happen in the near future.
The 22-year-old was injured in Thursday’s victory over Buffalo after colliding with teammate James van Riemsdyk. It was actually the second game in a row the Blue Jackets had a ‘friendly fire’ injury with Gudbranson’s injury coming on a collision with Sean Monahan.
Last season, Johnson battled injuries and some ineffectiveness, limiting him to just 42 games with Columbus where he had just six goals and ten assists while also spending time with AHL Cleveland. That resulted in the two sides working out a bridge contract this summer, a three-year, $5.4MM agreement as while he’s still viewed as a long-term building block for the rebuilding Blue Jackets, he certainly hadn’t shown enough for a long-term contract to be viable.
Johnson was off to a nice start to his season before the injury as he had two goals and three assists through his first four appearances and had logged an average of just over 20 minutes a night in his first three full outings. However, it looks like it’s going to be a little while at least before he has a chance to build on that.
We just can’t have nice things.
Columbus is the most snake bitten organization ever.
The amount of injuries the last few seasons has to be some kinda record for man games lost, not to mention the off ice tragedies of losing Matiss Kivlenieks and Johnny Gaudeau.
We could have been a playoff team if not for this goofy injury thing year after year. So annoying. Now it’s not even worth watching.
On top of that, until a team is a regular playoff team, the city gets disrespected by many around the league. I’ve been to close to every city in the NHL, and without hesitation I declare that I had the most FUN in Columbus. It’s a great hockey market that doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
For the record, and for various reasons, I hold Nashville, Chicago, and Detroit in high regard. I wish, as a Sabres diehard, (what Sabres fan is not a diehard?), that I could say the same about Buffalo. But I want to maintain some objectivity with my bias.
Keep strong, CBJ!
Oh I bet Smashville is a hoot.
“colliding with teammate” — the words no GM or HC ever wants to read or hear about his own team.
Happened two straight game with two straight injuries.
@Puck Defender — Seems like half the games I listen to have this happening. So much for preseason’s goal of ironing out the kinks, eh?