Arizona Coyotes defenceman Jordan Gross could miss the rest of the regular season due to injury. He suffered a knee injury and concussion in a recent game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Craig Morgan provided the update Monday morning.
Hearing Gross will miss significant time, possibly the rest of the regular season, depending on results of more tests on his knee. He'll return to AZ today.
As I noted Sunday, Ryan Reaves won't face supplemental discipline. Blame a poorly written rule & player safety lip service. https://t.co/kFrKVwEubH— Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) April 12, 2021
Coyotes Lose Jordan Gross Due To Injury
Gross has been largely a spare defender in 2020-21. The 25-year-old blueliner has appeared in just seven games but does have three assists, six hits and eight blocks while averaging 13:11 per game. He has played almost exclusively at even strength with a 53.8 percent Corsi For and .4 relative Corsi. It’s a very small sample size, but some of the underlying numbers are still promising for the second-year skater.
The Coyotes signed Gross as an undrafted free agent after the 2017-18 collegiate season as he wrapped up a productive career with the University of Notre Dame. The 5’10” Minnesota native posted 36 goals and 121 points in 159 games. He also collected 15 goals and 54 points in 118 games at the AHL level. He probably isn’t much more than a bottom-four pairing defender, but he is a right-handed shot and seems to have some decent scoring ability. He’s the exact sort of undrafted college signee teams love to uncover outside of the draft. One only needs to look as far as Torey Krug for an example of such a player.
How Arizona Replaces Gross
The Coyotes are in an interesting place with their roster. They are just one point outside of the West Division playoff picture. That would ordinarily give most teams a reason to buy at the trade deadline. However, the team’s system is not particularly deep, they have very little cap space, and they do not have their first-round pick in the 2021 Draft as a penalty for violating league rules. They may recall Victor Soderstrom, who has appeared in two games with no points or attempt to acquire a defensive reinforcement and squeeze them under the cap ceiling.
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