The 25-26 Injury Thread

[Cornuck]

At this point, we're still doing ok, 'considering'.... LINK

DAY-TO-DAY | Lower Body
Thatcher Demko
Demko (lower body) is expected to be evaluated Wednesday and Thursday before a timetable for his recovery will be determined, per Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK.
Expected Return: Nov 28, 2025

IR-LT | Undisclosed
Derek Forbort
Forbort (undisclosed) was placed on long-term injured reserve Tuesday.
Expected Return: Nov 23, 2025

IR | Undisclosed
Teddy Blueger
Blueger (undisclosed) was placed on injured reserve Friday, retroactive to Oct. 19.
Expected Return: Nov 23, 2025

IR | Upper Body
Filip Chytil
Chytil (upper body) was designated for injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Nov 23, 2025

IR-LT | Lower Body
Nils Hoglander
Hoglander (lower body) was moved to long-term injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Dec 14, 2025

IR-NR | Lower Body
Guillaume Brisebois
Brisebois (lower body) was placed on non-roster, injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Nov 23, 2025

IR-NR | Upper Body
Jett Woo
Woo (upper body) was put on non-roster injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Nov 29, 2025

[Madcombinepilot]

you should keep this updated and track man games lost as well as Salary not in the lineup due to injury.

[donlever]

Filip Chytil
Chytil (upper body) was designated for injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Nov 23, 2025
IR-LT | Lower Body

Nils Hoglander
Hoglander (lower body) was moved to long-term injured reserve Monday.
Expected Return: Dec 14, 2025
IR-NR | Lower Body

Chytil is both upper and lower body or a misclick?

His return date keeps getting pushed which I can not regard as a positive with respect to his brain.

Foote said the other day Hoglander is ahead of schedule.

Having him back would be nice as it potentially opens things up a bit for us....

[Cornuck]

Chytil is both upper and lower body or a misclick?

Yep - formating issue - fixed.

Having Hoglander, Chytil and Blueger back would be a huge boost, too.

[Ronning's Ghost]

I know this post isn't so old that any of you will have forgotten it, but my OCD insists that it belongs in this thread.

When the team is battling injuries to top players like now...

There is a tendency to treat injuries like they are entirely a matter of bad luck, and sure, there is certainly a random component. But at the NHL level, durability (or situational awareness, or both) is part of the athletic skill set.

It's kind of like shooting percentage: over the short term it is subject to statistical anomalies, but over the long term, genuine snipers will have a higher percentage than guys who throw it in the general direction of the net and hope. (Not to say that throwing it on net an hoping isn't sometimes the best play available.)

The Canucks have some less robustly constructed people at the top of their talent pool, and at least one whose "head on a swivel" skills are below professional standard. Over the course of season, they should expect to lose more man-games to injury.

Man-games lost can also be viewed as a measure of the skill of the training staff to some extent . I know HW has defended them passionately in the past, but their track record is only defensible if you suppose that management has been building particularly fragile rosters for some time, now. I do think that's a plausible interpretation, though.

[donlever]

I'd need to see a 32 team comparable to buy in RG.

...not asking you to do that...

The feels I get on items like this is it always "seems like" the "home team" is worse off than the rest of the league.

Not sure that's factual.....

[Cornuck]

Here's a near-current comparison, complete with a data-driven chart that Per can dissect for us.

https://nhlinjuryviz.blogspot.com/2025/ ... downs.html

[donlever]

So, based on $$ value, we're currently in the top of the league group but not first nor horribly situated versus the top 12 plus or minus.

Number analytics fluctuate sporadically in short term bursts so review over a 10, 15, 20 year scale would provide a more finite perspective.

I would imagine the Deltas decrease and we have a more East to West mean line with long term data.

[Ronning's Ghost]

I'd need to see a 32 team comparable to buy in RG.

...not asking you to do that...

Edit: I see Corn jumped on it, but here's some more.

Just 'cause I knew it was easy to find:

https://nhlinjuryviz.blogspot.com/2024/ ... downs.html
(the season before the one Cornuck posted -- larger sample size)

https://www.rotowire.com/hockey/article ... 4-25-93844

There are other sites, other parts of these sites, and other seasons to explore. Depending on how you choose to slice it, you can bring Vancouver much closer to the average than these links show. But I didn't find any version in which the Canucks were less injured than average. I also did not find a version that factored in kilometres traveled, but the raw data is out there, so if one of you wants to draw traffic to this site (or a site of your own), you could build your own chart.

And I should not speak for Topper, but based on other discussions about stats, I think he would argue that there is too large a random element in injuries, and rosters change too much over time, to separate the signal from the noise for a franchise. You could probably do it for individual players who have been in the League for at least (say) 5 seasons, and then work back to roster composition.

On a compare the math to reality level (as when rejecting negative values for area when solving quadratics), focusing on Vancouver's 3 most talented players, we all know that Demko can't usually handle many games (https://www.rotowire.com/hockey/player/ ... demko-4410; https://www.hockey-reference.com/player ... oth01.html) [which make sense because the Canucks knew he had wonky hips when they drafted him -- which was probably why he was still available so late in the draft], EP40 has a very gracile frame, and Hughes is on the smaller side.

[Cornuck]

And I should not speak for Topper, but based on other discussions about stats, I think he would argue that there is too large a random element in injuries, and rosters change too much over time, to separate the signal from the noise for a franchise.

Injuries are (mostly) random, but as you also said, certain players are prone to a higher incidence of injury (Demko, Chytil)

Other factors on a team level, though, could include travel and condensed schedules like we see this year, with more back-to-backs (but again, this is largely spread out throughout the league).

I would also factor in the quality of the team's training staff, equipment, and facilities. I recall back in the early 90s (?) that the Canucks touted their hyperbaric chamber, which helped players recover faster. I have no idea what current trends and equipment could put one team ahead of another, but I'm guessing that once one team has "it", the rest catch up quickly.

[donlever]

So the 24/25 league average was 206 man lost games and 26 actual injuries.

And the Canucks were 228 and 28.

[Cornuck]

There's also the 'advanced stats' of salary lost vs just man games. Having Jett Woo out vs Chytil is a huge difference.

[rats19]

So the 24/25 league average was 206 man lost games and 26 actual injuries.

And the Canucks were 228 and 28.

Guess boils down to who is injured ….

[donlever]

Guess boils down to who is injured ….

For sure.

Let's take Utah as an example.

18 total injuries with 242 man games lost.....might be the difference between playoffs or not.

But their key group:

Keller
Cooley
Crouse
Sergachev
Guenther
Schwartz
Kerfoot
Hayton

...all logged 70 or more games.

[Ronning's Ghost]

So the 24/25 league average was 206 man lost games and 26 actual injuries.

And the Canucks were 228 and 28.

Guess boils down to who is injured ….

For sure.

There's also the 'advanced stats' of salary lost vs just man games. Having Jett Woo out vs Chytil is a huge difference.

So I'd say that the more instructive way to look at the 24/25 numbers is a Cap Hit of Injured Players (CHIP) of over $12 million, vs. a league median of under $10 million. The difference is more than they paid Blueger, and close to the lingering damage of the O.E.L.... situation.

Or you could say it's only around 2%, and 2% more points would still have seen them out of the playoffs. But I say that in a League that strives for parity, small percentages add up.