The Detroit Red Wings have placed captain Dylan Larkin on injured reserve, retroactive to Saturday, after sustaining an upper body injury vs. the Ottawa Senators.
Larkin left the game at the 13:50 mark of the 1st period following an awkward net front hit involving Sens winger Mathieu Joseph. After laying motionless for some time, the 27 year old was able to leave the ice with the assistance of teammates and did not return.
“Dylan’s going to the IR. No timeframe on it, so obviously it makes him unavailable for at least a week,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “I think we’ll know more as time goes on. I think it was a positive to see him down unconscious, what goes through your head and his past history, to see him go off the ice with some assistance and not through the stretcher was a positive. We’ll know more in the next few days. Unfortunate to lose a player of that caliber for an extended period of time.”
Joseph was initially given a major penalty on the play, but it was reduced to a minor after video review. Following the injury however, Wings forward David Perron was assessed a match penalty for intent to injury after cross checking Senators defenseman Artem Zub in the head.
Perron was offered an in-person hearing for the offense, meaning that a suspension in excess of 5 games could be handed out when he meets with the NHL department of player safety this week.
Making matters worse for the Red Wings is that the team also announced that they were placing forwards J.T. Compher (retroactive to Tuesday) and Klim Kostin (retroactive to Thursday) on injured reserve as well. All in all that makes 4 forwards that will be out of the lineup for the foreseeable future for Detroit.
In a corresponding move, the Wings have recalled forwards Zach Aston-Reese, Jonatan Berggren, and Austin Czarnik from their AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids. Berggren, 23, has appeared in 4 games with the Winged Wheel this season recording an assist and a penalty in the process. The 5’11” forward has been nearly a point a game player for the Griffins scoring 15 points (5G, 10A) across 16 contests in the AHL ranks.
The former 2nd round pick from 2018 will now get ample opportunity to potentially carve out a long term role for himself in the NHL amidst Detroit’s currently decimated forward group.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Ken Lund. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.