{"id":102736,"date":"2021-03-05T23:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T04:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=102736"},"modified":"2021-03-11T23:03:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T04:03:54","slug":"colorado-avalanche-star-nathan-mackinnon-suffers-upper-body-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/03\/05\/colorado-avalanche-star-nathan-mackinnon-suffers-upper-body-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Avalanche Star Nathan Mackinnon Suffers Upper Body Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/avalanche\/\" target=\"_self\">Colorado Avalance<\/a> forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mackina01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> was ruled out of Friday night&#8217;s game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/ducks\/\" target=\"_self\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> with an upper-body injury. The team announced the injury via its PR Twitter account around 30 minutes before the start of the game.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kiefer Sherwood has been added to tonight\u2019s Avalanche lineup. Nathan MacKinnon is out (upper body).<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Avalanche PR (@AvsPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AvsPR\/status\/1368011058170843136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 6, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>MacKinnon Out With Upper-Body Injury<\/h2>\n<p>MacKinnon&#8217;s absence comes as a surprise to many after he participated in Friday&#8217;s morning skate. Colorado&#8217;s star forward left the previous game early against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sharks\/\" target=\"_self\">San Jose Sharks<\/a> after receiving an illegal check to the head. However, initially, there were relatively positive updates following his departure on Wednesday night. &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/colorado-avalanche-star-nathan-mackinnon-seems-fine-after-hit-to-head-from-joachim-blichfeld-1.1602326\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I saw him coming off the ice. He seems to be doing good,<\/a>&#8221; said Avalanche coach Jared Bednar in the post-game interviews.<\/p>\n<p>MacKinnon took a high-hit in the neutral zone from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/blichjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joachim Blichfeld<\/a> during the third period against the Sharks. Blichfeld was skating towards the bench for a line change when he led with his shoulder into MacKinnon as he skated past him. At first glance, it appeared that the contact was shoulder-to-shoulder before Blichfeld&#8217;s momentum took him into MacKinnon&#8217;s head. However, from other angles, it looks like the Sharks&#8217; fourth-liner made clean contact with the side of the head. The Avalanche&#8217;s medical staff immediately attended to MacKinnon on the ice before he quickly headed off down the tunnel. He did not return to Wednesday night&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;4487&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>Blichfeld received a match penalty for a check to the head.\u00a0 He was playing in his debut game this season for the Sharks and had 5:21 time on ice with one shot on goal. On Thursday, the NHL&#8217;s Department of Player Safety suspended Blichfeld for two games for the hit.<\/p>\n<h3>Injury Situation In Colorado<\/h3>\n<p>Colorado is currently without their two best skaters on offence and defence. Alongside MacKinnon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/makarca01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cale Makar<\/a> is also absent from the lineup after missing the last three games with an upper-body injury. He is not expected to play before the Avs home game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/coyotes\/\" target=\"_self\">Arizona Coyotes<\/a> on Monday, March 8th. Rookie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/byrambo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bowen Byram<\/a> is a third injury concern for the Avalanche who will miss his second game in a row on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sherwki01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kiefer Sherwood<\/a> was called up from the taxi squad for Friday night&#8217;s game in response to the Nathan MacKinnon injury news. He has two assists in four games this season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elzq7-qYRBhjICpot_Nskw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1305018395\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'elzq7-qYRBhjICpot_Nskw',sig:'A_-nl7U3RWQ0-jwSk-5Wc7hvoxuCEeaFzfhb10g07FI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1305018395',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colorado Avalance forward Nathan MacKinnon was ruled out of Friday night&#8217;s game against the Anaheim Ducks with an upper-body injury. The team announced the injury via its PR Twitter account around 30 minutes before the start of the game. Kiefer Sherwood has been added to tonight\u2019s Avalanche lineup. Nathan MacKinnon is out (upper body). &mdash; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1733,"featured_media":102743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[3509,1515,5781,1576,2784,77],"class_list":["post-102736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avalanche","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-bowen-byram","tag-cale-makar","tag-colorado-avalanche-news","tag-injury","tag-joachim-blichfeld","tag-nathan-mackinnon"],"modified_by":"Alex Metzger, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}