Filip Chytil got his feet tangled with referee Riley Brace on Thursday, went hard into the boards, and left the Canucks bench.
Daniel Wagner had it from the building. Brace seemed to get the worst of it, he wrote.
Nobody has said anything about either man since. No update, no diagnosis, no timeline attached to it.
The ice time tells the rest of the story. Chytil finished with 4:54 in a game Vancouver lost 2-1.
The next lowest forward played 11:14. He wasn't out there for anything after that sequence.
One shot on goal, no points, even on the night. That was his entire evening.
Vancouver has to be down to 23 players by 2 p.m. Pacific on Monday. Thursday made none of that easier.
Here is the clip :
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Filip Chytil forced out after violent collision with official
Lekkerimaki picked up a point in that game. Wagner had called him the biggest question in the forward group this week.
He's waiver exempt, which is the detail that keeps him in the conversation either way.
Elias Pettersson played 20:48 without registering a shot on goal.
Nick Kypreos said this week that teams are asking about the centre again, with no urgency on Vancouver's side.
Jake DeBrusk put 7 shots on net across 17:00 and didn't find one.
Vancouver is 0-3 through the exhibition schedule after three straight losses.
Edmonton is 3-0 and took this one 2-1 on the road.
These two open the regular season against each other on September 29 in Edmonton.
Thatcher Demko is already hurt. That roster cannot absorb much more of this.
Manny Malhotra has four days to pick 23 names and one fewer healthy forward than he had Thursday morning.
Nobody in that building is pretending the preseason results matter. The bodies do.
So who ends up on the list? A player and an official going down together works like two cars meeting at a four-way stop. Nobody planned it and somebody still fills out a form.
Malhotra opens in Edmonton in four days. He'd like to know which forwards he actually has before then.
Should Vancouver hold a roster spot for Filip Chytil until he's cleared?
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