The Washington Capitals are already without star center Nicklas Backstrom and now may have to worry about one of the guys behind him on the depth chart.
Monday, Lars Eller left practice midway through practice at Training Camp for precautionary reasons.
The Capitals are calling it a lower-body injury.
Capitals say it's a lower-body issue for Eller and he left for precautionary reasons.
They will see how he feels tomorrow for practice. https://t.co/V5TKBy8uqz
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) September 27, 2021
The news comes after an extremely unlucky year for Eller injury-wise. The Danish center got hurt three times last season. Once due to a hit from behind by Leo Komarov which injured his neck and two separate lower-body injuries that affected his groin.
It appears this is where Lars Eller got injured. He was racing back for a loose puck and then kinda pulled up lame, lifting his right leg. pic.twitter.com/8NJzb76sy4
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) March 14, 2021
Lars Eller said he injured his groin in the playoffs. He injured the groin in his other leg earlier in the season.
Also had shoulder, neck issue earlier in season after hit from Komarov.
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) May 25, 2021
The Capitals were already considering giving the 32-year-old pivot a bigger role to open the season with Backstrom rehabbing a hip injury.
“We’re already definitely preparing for (Backstrom to be out),” Laviolette said after camp on Monday. “That’s not to lead you one way or the other, but when you hear week-to-week, that could be two weeks and Game 1’s already at the end of that. We’re already in that process where we’re talking about players and who could fill that role so that’s already ongoing.
“There’s a chance that a guy like Lars could take more minutes and we kind of layer in underneath that. We’ve got to see where everybody’s at.”
Caps depth chart at center:
- 1) Evgeny Kuznetsov
- 2) Nicklas Backstrom (week-to-week)
- 3) Lars Eller (day-to-day)
- 4) Nic Dowd
- Camp attendees: Brian Pinho, Connor McMichael, Michael Sgarbossa, Garrett Pilon, Aliaksei Protas, Hendrix Lapierre, Riley Sutter
This is a storyline that will be worth keeping an eye on moving forward.
Headline photo: Cara Bahniuk/RMNB
