You know the saying the hits just keep on coming? That was the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. Except, they all came at the same time. I guess we can’t have nice things in Newark.
First, it was Dougie Hamilton. The team’s $9 million prize is now sidelined for who knows how long with a broken jaw. There was always a possibility that the Devils were going to be without their star defenseman for a little bit of time after he got hit in the face with a puck on Sunday in the team’s big win against the Washington Capitals.
That was already bad on the injury front. Things only got worse from there. Nico Hischier, the team’s captain and one of its stars, is now going to miss considerable time. The rumors are either a broken foot or a broken ankle. Either way, that’s brutal.
According to a source:
— Vinnie Parise (@VinnieParise) January 4, 2022
Nico Hischier’s ankle is either bruised or broken. He is going back to New Jersey to look at it. Timeline TBD. #NJDevils
The Hischier news is especially painful for New Jersey Devils fans. He literally scored the overtime game winner in the last game they played. He got hit by a shot but didn’t seem like he was in too much pain. There was no sign that the team was going to be without its captain for any time at all. Plus, on top of all of that, Hischier was playing his best hockey. He had two goals against the Capitals, and he’s had three goals and an assist since the end of the Christmas break.
On top of all that, the Devils confirmed that Jonathan Bernier was out for the season after he got hip surgery. The Devils are now sitting with Jon Gillies as their primary backup, and Mackenzie Blackwood is not having a very good season. The situation in net is not ideal, to say the least. There really is no hope to fix it, either.
If all that wasn’t enough, the Devils lost both Pavel Zacha and Yegor Sharangovich to COVID protocols. How is this even possible to lose this many people in one shot? They are both asymptomatic, so hopefully, they can return in five days as the new protocols suggest.
There have been some seriously bad days over the past two years in New Jersey Devils hockey, but it’s going to be hard to top this one.