Believe it or not, the Canucks are NOT the most-injured team to start the 2025-26 season
Alright, this is admittedly getting a bit ridiculous.
The Vancouver Canucks played their 11th game of the 2025-26 regular season on Tuesday against the New York Rangers, and at the same time, appeared to suffer their ninth injury to a full-time roster player as
The toll is enormous at this point.
Nils Höglander, injured in the preseason, has missed all 11 games. Derek Forbort and Teddy Blueger have missed nine each, with Blueger’s absence appearing to be split between two distinct injuries. Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Filip Chytil have missed the last five, with Chytil’s injury appearing to be the most serious of the bunch. P-O Joseph missed three to start.
Captain Quinn Hughes has missed the two most recent games, and his call-up replacement, Victor Mancini, got injured in his first game back. Now, on top of all that and as if that wasn’t plenty, the Canucks may be down their leading scorer in Garland.
Nine injuries, and that’s not even counting Brock Boeser’s two-game personal leave, or the season-opening injuries to likely call-ups Guillaume Brisebois and Jett Woo.
All of this has naturally led to some lamenting in Canuckland, and it would be a little surprising if it didn’t. This is, by any measure, a run of bad injury luck. But it’s not exactly unprecedented by this franchise’s own standard, or even by the standard of the 2025-26 season.
Believe it or not, as bad as the Canucks have had it this year, they have not had it the worst.
If we’re talking just ‘games lost to injury,’ specifically by players expected to be on the roster, the Canucks are up to 45. That’s an average of more than four per game, and it’s undoubtedly a lot.
A couple of other teams have more ‘games lost,’ however. According to NHLInjuryViz, which has taken on tracking these numbers, it’s the Canucks’ expansion cousins, the Buffalo Sabres, who are the true injury leaders of the early going.
So far, the Sabres have missed time from all of Josh Norris, Zach Benson, Owen Power, Michael Kesselring, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Jordan Greenway, Justin Danforth, Tyson Kozak, Mattias Samuelsson, Jacob Bryson, and Colten Ellis. Those aren’t all household names, but they were all more-or-less expected to be Sabres at this point in time. That’s 11 total injuries, with the quartet of Kesselring, Norris, Greenway, and Luukkonen each missing the majority of the season thus far.
The Carolina Hurricanes, currently missing Pyotr Kochetkov, Jaccob Slavin, K’Andre Miller, and Shayne Gostisbehere for a good chunk of the year, are also worthy of mention here.
The two-time defending Cup champion Florida Panthers, meanwhile, almost equal the Canucks’ games-lost with just a handful of players. Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, and Tomas Nosek have missed the entire season of 11 games thus far, and Dmitry Kulikov has missed all but two. That’s 42 games between just four players, and when we’re talking about Barkov and Tkachuk, we’re talking two extremely important players.
That’s probably why the folks at NHLInjuryViz don’t just track raw games lost, but also attempts to measure the impact of those losses. They’ve got a number of ways of doing that, including measuring by Lost WAR (Wins Above Regulation) via injury, as well as the lost Cap Hit of Injured Players (CHIP) and the Cumulative Minutes of Injured Players (CMIP). These measures are based on the most recent statistics available.
It is those same Panthers who ‘lead’ the league in most of these regards. The loss of Barkov and Tkachuk alone ensure that the Panthers have the highest LWAR by far, quite literally dwarfing all other teams on the chart. The Canucks, for their part, rank about 10
The Canucks fall even farther down the charts when we get to CHIP, where they rank 13
It’s once we get to the CMIP, or the measure of minutes lost, that we really start to see the impact on the Canucks. Here, they rank ninth so far, but we’ll note that they should be really climbing up that chart for every game that Hughes and Garland miss from here on out. Again, they’re not going to touch the impact of Florida missing their stars for the entire start of the season, or the cumulative loss of all those Sabres, for quite some time yet. But they should start to surpass most of the other teams if they continue to miss a good 26 minutes of ice-time per night from Hughes.
In fact, if there’s one distinction we can draw here, it’s that eight of the Canucks’ nine injuries are currently ongoing. While other teams are presumably getting healthier, and the Canucks are not, and that’s going to continue to progress them up any injury-impact-measuring chart.
For the time being, however, all this goes to show that, while the Canucks have it bad right now, and it only seems to be getting worse, this is the sort of thing that is happening to at least a few NHL teams at basically any given point in any given NHL regular season. This is a tough sport, and injuries are relatively commonplace, and sometimes they will inevitably pile up.
The Canucks, for their part, still have at least ten eligible call-ups available from Abbotsford. They can continue to weather this storm, and if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive, they’re going to have to find a way to do more than weather it.
The Canucks have it hard with injuries right now, and there can be no doubt about that. But not so hard as to create an unprecedented or unparalleled situation, even by the standards of just this singular 2025-26 season. And that should mean that it’s not an impossible situation, either.
Just a really, really difficult one.
Seahawks’ Riq Woolen on Colts’ Radar Ahead of Trade Deadline
As the NFL trade deadline approaches on November 4, the Indianapolis Colts are reportedly exploring a trade for Seattle Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen, who has become one of the league's most prolific ball-hawking defenders. Known for his size, speed, and playmaking ability, Woolen has recorded 11 interceptions and 30 pass breakups over his career.
“It’s always great to be recognized for your work on the field,” Woolen said when asked about the trade rumors. “But at the end of the day, I’m focused on helping this team win, whether that’s in Seattle or anywhere else. If a move happens, I’ll be ready.”
Reports suggest that Woolen, despite his impressive stats, may not be a perfect fit in Seattle’s defensive scheme under head coach Mike Macdonald. This has led to speculation that the Seahawks might be willing to move him before the trade deadline.
“If the rumors are true, it’s a business,” Woolen added. “I’m just doing my job here and focusing on the team. I’ll keep working hard and if the time comes for a change, I’ll adapt and do what’s best for my career.”
The Colts, who have been active in pursuing defensive upgrades, are reportedly interested in bolstering their cornerback depth, especially after the unexpected retirement of veteran cornerback Xavien Howard earlier this season. Woolen’s ability to change the game with his ball skills and physicality would be a huge addition to the Colts' secondary.
“I’m always striving to get better,” Woolen said. “Whether it’s interceptions or pass breakups, I want to be someone who can make plays when the team needs it the most.”
The trade would also be a chance for the Colts to further solidify their defense as they prepare for a potential playoff run, with Woolen’s athletic profile making him a perfect fit in a secondary looking to make an impact on opposing quarterbacks.
“It would be exciting to join a team that’s making a push for the playoffs,” Woolen said when asked about the potential trade. “But for now, I’m focused on what’s in front of me. I’m just preparing and getting ready for whatever happens next.”
As the November 4 deadline draws near, both the Colts and Seahawks will have important decisions to make regarding Woolen’s future. If the trade goes through, it would bolster the Colts' defense significantly for the second half of the season.
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