NHL Injuries: Rangers, Pens, Devils, Leafs and Caps
Brooks Orpik

On the New York Rangers …

  • Andrew Gross of NorthJersey.com: Rick Nash missed his third straight game with a left leg bone bruise, and Dan Boyle was sat as he has been  looking tired.

    “He looked a little bit tired prior to the break,” Vigneault said of Boyle. “It was definitely a sign for us to monitor him a little bit better than we did in that first half so that’s what we’re going to do. He looked fresh yesterday, had a good practice, playing today and we’ll take it from there.”

On the Pittsburgh Penguins …

  • Jenn Menendez: Eric Fehr left last night’s game. He was being evaluated last night, with head coach Mike Sullivan expecting more information today.

On the New Jersey Devils …

  • Tom Gulitti: Coach John Hynes said that Mike Cammalleri won’t play on Thursday. The earliest he’ll be back is on Saturday.

On the Toronto Maple Leafs …

  • Scott Wheeler: “Surprised at lack of coverage of the fact that Stephane Robidas still hasn’t played a single game. Where is he? What’s he doing? Progress?”
  • James Mirtle: (Responding to Wheeler) The Leafs won’t say anything. Jonas (Siegel?) tried going down that road.
  • Scott Wheeler: The last update came from Renaud Lavoie back in November.

On the Washington Capitals …

  • Isabelle Khurshudyan: Coach Barry Trotz said that he doesn’t know how long Marcus Johansson will be out. He skated before practice yesterday and is still “day-to-day.”
  • Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: Defenseman Brooks Orpik joined teammates for his first practice since December 7th. Orpik has been out since November 10th.

    “I kind of had to take a step back and get a different look at it and take a different approach,” Orpik said. “It wasn’t healing when you’re trying to play through it. Only thing that was going to make it heal was to rest. You’re a lot smarter looking back on things in hindsight, but you don’t like missing games so you just try to play through things.

    “It’s probably a good lesson for a lot of guys; it’s not the smartest thing sometimes. … If I kept skating on it, the bone was never going to heal. That’s where we’re at. They told me I had to stay off it for eight weeks, so that was a long eight weeks.”

    Orpik said they are not sure how far he is away from playing. Trotz said there is no timeline. Orpik is on the LTIR, but the Capitals aren’t using that space, so they can activate him without making any roster moves.