If you wanted to put together a strong core of an NHL team, you could do pretty well just by selecting players who are on the sidelines with an injury right now.
We’ve seen a rash of injuries across the league already and the season is barely a week old. Whether it’s due to the short pre-season or simply bad luck is anyone’s guess, but it’s hard to remember a time when so many big names went down only a few games into a campaign. That doesn’t even include someone like Connor Bedard, who was hurt over the summer, or Brock Faber, who suffered an injury during exhibition play.
It's early enough that the majority of these players should make it back to still play an important role for their teams in 2026-27. That said, even missing just a few weeks at this time of year could potentially put your team in a hole that’s going to be very difficult to dig out of.
Let’s take a look at four of the bigger names currently sidelined and rank them from least to most impactful.
Any time a top-six forward goes down, it’s a big loss, especially one as dynamic as Demidov. The Canadiens winger is expected to miss the next two to four weeks with a lower-body injury after an impressive game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he potted a goal and an assist.
Montreal is also off to a bit of a slow start in what figures to be a very successful season. The Canadiens have just one win thus far and have given up 17 goals in their past three games, so they are certainly going to miss Demidov’s firepower. The good news is the team may be better equipped than just about anyone to handle the loss of a key player. Montreal boasts one of the deepest rosters in the NHL and just added Chris Kreider prior to the season to bolster the forward unit. Plus, their schedule for the rest of the month is fairly favourable. The Canadiens play four of the next five at home and five of their remaining games in October come against non-playoff teams from last season.
There will be more pressure on players like Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson to step up. And yes, the Atlantic Division figures to be very competitive, but there’s enough talent on the Canadiens to survive without Demidov for a few weeks. It’s a concern but no need for full-blown panic.
Sanderson’s season lasted all of 4:29 before he was forced to exit against the Toronto Maple Leafs with a lower-body injury. He hasn’t played since. It’s obviously less than ideal for the Senators, who moved on from Brady Tkachuk this summer and were hoping to get off to a better start than they did a year ago. The Senators lost five of their first seven games last season and are trying to avoid putting themselves in a tough spot in a difficult division.
There’s a ripple effect throughout the Senators' blue line due to Sanderson’s loss, as it puts more pressure and weight on everyone’s shoulders with Artem Zub also out right now. For instance, Cameron Crotty, who only has 10 career games under his belt, was pressed into action without Sanderson and played less than 11 minutes in both of his outings. Hoyt Stanley got a turn Thursday and played just 10:21. That’s forced Thomas Chabot to average over 26 minutes a night so far, more than three minutes per game than he was averaging last year. On Thursday night specifically, Chabot played 29:19. Ideally, you don’t want to be overtaxing key players so early in what is now an 84-game season.
The Sens did catch a break when it comes to Linus Ullmark, as he was back between the pipes Thursday night after going down with an injury earlier in the week. If Ottawa was down both its No. 1 goalie and top defenceman, it would’ve been a much bigger challenge for the team to overcome.
Just about everything is going right for the Jets in the early part of the season. Winnipeg jumped out to a 3-0-1 record in a season that was supposed to be marred by the Connor Hellebuyck trade request, and the team is full of confidence playing an exciting brand of hockey. If there is one negative, though, it’s that top defender Josh Morrissey went down with an injury Wednesday in a victory over the Colorado Avalanche.
Morrissey is a huge catalyst for the Jets offence, so if he is forced to miss substantial time it’s going to sting. Last season he was the team’s fourth-leading scorer after Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi. Morrissey had 55 points a year ago and the next closest player to him was Cole Perfetti at 32 points. It looks like Perfetti may take a big step forward in 2026-27, but the Jets still can’t afford to lose Morrissey’s production from a lineup that isn’t deep with talented offensive players.
If the Jets are going to have a good season this year without Hellebuyck in a tough Central Division, just about everything has to go perfectly. So far, the goaltending has done a good job and the team isn’t showing any signs that they miss their gold medal-winning goaltender. There’s lots of optimism in Winnipeg right now, so you just hope a Morrissey injury doesn’t derail it.
There’s been no one with worse injury luck than Barkov over the past two seasons. After missing all of last year with a knee injury suffered in training camp, Barkov is now expected to be out six to eight weeks after suffering an ailment in his second game back.
We saw what happened to the Panthers last season without Barkov, and although it sounds like he’ll be back before the new year, he still could miss around 30 games based on this timeline. Florida does have Anton Lundell who can step up, and they can shift Sam Reinhart to the middle to go along with Sam Bennett should they need to, but Barkov is easily their most important player because of what he does at both ends of the ice. Making matters worse is that now Brad Marchand looks like he’s going to miss some time with an injury, putting the forward group in a little more vulnerable state.
The fact that the Panthers added Brady Tkachuk this summer should make them more capable of absorbing the loss of a key forward or two, but Tkachuk is off to a very slow start. He’s pointless in four games and hasn’t made a huge impact just yet. All this isn’t to say that things will snowball in a negative way again for the Panthers like they did last year, it just makes them less of a juggernaut than we anticipated and Florida’s path back to the playoffs much tougher.
Bonus - Macklin Celebrini, San Jose Sharks
I couldn’t rank Celebrini in my top four on this list because he’s listed as day-to-day and practiced Thursday, though I still have his injury as a bit concerning. That’s mostly because there may only be a couple of players in the entire NHL more important to their team than Celebrini.
Last season, Celebrini had 56 more points than the next closest Shark and 21 more goals than Will Smith, who ranked second on San Jose. He scored 115 points as a 19-year-old and nearly willed the team improbably into the playoffs. Granted, some of their other younger players should be more impactful contributors in 2026-27, but just don’t count on them to come anywhere close to replacing Celebrini’s production.
Expectations were a little higher this year, and San Jose was off and running with victories in their first two games, as the Sharks scored nine times with Celebrini picking up helpers on five of the goals. During his first game on the sidelines, though, San Jose promptly took it on the chin to the tune of a 5-0 defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars. Perhaps Celebrini isn’t out of action very long, but keep in mind the team noted this injury is something he’s been dealing with for a while. Even when he’s back in the lineup, there’s no guarantee he’ll be operating at full strength. With a fully healthy Celebrini who is clicking on all cylinders, the playoffs are a very realistic possibility for the Sharks. Without him, or even if he’s not 100 per cent because of the injury, San Jose is likely a below-average team.
