Brock Boeser left Sunday’s game against the Calgary Flames on all fours, pushing his way to the bench on his one good foot.
Given that Boeser took a Mark Giordano shot off the inside of his left foot and was seen on crutches after the game, it’s safe to assume that the prognosis is bad. Even if his foot isn’t broken, a bad bone bruise could still take him out of the lineup for weeks.
That’s the second player Giordano has taken out of the Canucks’ lineup with the puck. A week ago, he fractured Sven Baertschi’s jaw when his clearing attempt ricocheted off the glass. Now he’s likely broken Boeser’s foot.
In the last eleven days, the Canucks have lost four of their most important players to injury. It started with Bo Horvat, who fractured his foot in an odd play along the boards against the Carolina Hurricanes. Then Baertschi a few days later. After that, Chris Tanev went down with a groin strain. And now Boeser.
There’s only so much a roster can take. The Canucks lost four straight as soon as Horvat left the lineup and it took an emotional bounceback from a 7-1 loss to get their only win, in which they barely won in overtime despite playing out of their minds. Expecting the Canucks to win any games without their entire first line and their best defenceman, along with Brandon Sutter, Erik Gudbranson, and Derek Dorsett, is asking a lot.
The run of injuries also means the Utica Comets will be missing their top three scorers. The Canucks reportedly called up Reid Boucher after the game.
He joins Nikolay Goldobin and Michael Chaput as call-ups from the Comets. The three forwards are still the Comet’s leading scorers. Boucher leads the Comets in both goals and points with 13 goals and 25 points in 25 games. That’s good for eighth in the AHL in goals and 16th in points.
Boucher has a great shot, if not the same caliber as Brock Boeser’s. To be fair, very few players in the NHL have a shot as good as Boeser.
There’s an argument to be made that an NHL team should be able to find a role for Boucher, perhaps as a fourth-line winger with power play time. So far, Boucher hasn’t quite scored enough to be a top-six forward and isn’t gritty or defensively responsible enough to be a bottom-six forward.
With so many players out of the lineup, this may be Boucher’s best chance to get some top-six ice time.
This is not going to be pretty. No first line, no Tanev, and the Canucks holding out hope that Sutter and Gudbranson return soon. As hopes go, that’s not ideal.
