Vancouver Canucks have placed forward Jake Virtanen on the injured reserve list. Virtanen suffered an injury during the game against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Wednesday night.
Jake Virtanen will probably go on IR to make a move for Ryan Spooner to be called up. Jake is still banged up from the Anaheim game. #Canucks
— #ThankYouSedins (@xBraedenn) 16. februára 2019
Virtanen Headed to the Injured Reserve for Vancouver
He already missed the last two games for the Canucks and is expected to miss a few more. The Canucks lost the game versus the Ducks, 1-0. Virtanen is signed through the 2019-2020 season and carries a salary cap hit of $1,250,000 per year.
He is a former sixth overall pick in the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft for Vancouver. He has played in 198 games so far in his career, collecting 56 points. The right winger has recorded 12 goals and 10 assists in 58 games over the current campaign. He hadn’t missed a game prior to Thursday’s against the Los Angeles Kings.
What This Means For The Future
Ahead of his injury, Virtanen skated on a right wing of the first line for the Canucks alongside Bo Horvat and Antoine Roussel. Head coach Travis Green promoted Nikolay Goldobin to play with Horvat and Roussel, but presumably made a new top line with Elias Pettersson centering Brock Boeser and Josh Leivo.
During last night in San Jose, Vancouver lost against the San Jose Sharks by one goal. The Canucks are trailing the Minnesota Wild by one point for the last Western Conference playoff spot. However, the Wild have two games in hand on them. Virtanen’s injury isn’t the only problem for Vancouver. They are still missing forwards Brandon Sutter (read more about Sutter here) and Sven Baertschi (read more about Baertschi here) along with defencemen Alexander Edler (read more about Edler here) and Chris Tanev.
The Canucks just recently acquired forward Ryan Spooner in a trade with the Edmonton Oilers and they needed to make roster space.
Vancouver Canucks forward Jake Virtanen at practice. (Getty Images)
