Nino Niederreiter will sit out a week as he recovers from a skate gash to his leg.
The Winnipeg Jets will be without forward Nino Niederreiter for the short-term future.
On Wednesday, head coach Rick Bowness announced the team's third line winger will be out of the lineup for the short-term future as he recovers from a cut to his lower leg.
The 31-year-old suffered the injury on a strange play at the eight-minute mark of the third period on Monday's game against Los Angeles. Forced to take the draw after linemate Adam Lowry was waved, Niederreiter got tangled up with Adrian Kempe and both players fell to the ice.
Niederreiter got up, took a little twirl around the ice, grabbed at the back of his boot and immediately headed off the ice and down the Jets' tunnel, to which he fell to the ground before receiving assistance from the team's medical staff.
The injury, says Bowness, could have been a whole lot worse than just some stitches and swelling.
Niederreiter, who wears cut-resistant, kevlar-style socks in his skates, was lucky to have them on Monday night.
“Those socks probably saved him, yeah,” said his coach. “It was a pretty deep gash. It could have been a lot worse, had it gone any deeper. Worst case scenarios, this is probably the best one. And hopefully it’s no longer than a week.”
So, thanks to his knee-highs, Nino will only miss the next seven days or so - a stretch of time that will see his Jets teammates face off against Calgary on Thursday, before hitting the road for a four-game Central Division road trip with stops in Minnesota, Nashville, Dallas and Colorado.
With Niederreiter out of the lineup on Thursday and onward, the Jets will be forced to adjust the lone constant they have had all season: that of their third line.
The trio of Niederreiter, Lowry and Mason Appleton will be no more, as Tyler Toffoli will slot in in Niederreiter's absence.
Having missed the last game due to illness, Toffoli will look to take over from his injured mate, as Cole Perfetti has collectively taken his place on the second line a role his coach says was "well-deserved".
“We’re not going to take him off that line now,” Bowness said of Perfetti. “He’s earned it. We told him when you back in, we’ll try to get you more ice time with the top six. He took full advantage of it. The game is all about adjustments. You see something you like, you let it go. You see something you don’t like, you change it.”
Who comes out once Niederreiter is back to full health remains a 'tomorrow problem' for Bowness.
Thursday's game against Calgary features a familiar 7:00 PM central start time and will be broadcast live on TSN.