The Winnipeg Jets will be without defenseman Dustin Byfuglien for an unknown amount of time. Byfuglien recently suffered a lower-body injury. This has him being listed as week-to-week, with a possible return after Christmas.
Dustin Byfuglien Injured, Listed as Week-to-Week
Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice stated that Byfuglien suffered a lower-body injury in Saturday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Byfuglien logged the lowest ice time of his season so far, clocking in at 16:54 during the game.
Byfuglien is averaging 23:40 TOI/GP this season, 2:20 more than the second most on the Jets roster (Mark Scheifele). This also puts him at 28th in the league for TOI/GP.
Losing a defenseman logging that kind of minutes is never easy. And despite the fact that Byfuglien has yet to score, he is still producing at an acceptable level. He currently has 15 assists in 28 games and is sporting a 0.14 Relative Corsi-For Percentage.
While these certainly are not stat lines to drool over, it is a big loss on the back end for the Jets. But there is a silver lining to this injury.
TSN Hockey’s Darren Dreger has provided a “bright side” to this, stating this injury will give rookie defenseman Tucker Poolman a chance to play more minutes. The 24-year-old defenseman has only played in three games this season, accounting for all of his career games to this point.
During that short stint of games he has averaged 15:40 TOI/GP on an average of 19.66 shifts per game. He has four shots, with no goals and no assists to go with his one hit, three blocked shots, one giveaway and one takeaway.
Despite not clocking much time with the Jets this season he has played in seven games with their AHL-affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. In those seven games he has a single assist and four penalty minutes to his name.
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