Jason Zucker Likely Done For Season, Ryan Carter Out A Month

We’ve learned today that Jason Zucker’s injury will likely sideline him for the remainder of the Minnesota Wild’s season. Ryan Carter will miss a month.

After the first half of the Wild’s season saw a team decimated by the mumps, a stomach virus, and various injures. Today, things got worse as we learned top-6 winger Jason Zucker sustained a Clavicle injury last night that will require surgical intervention and keep him off the ice for 3 months. To make matters worse, Ryan Carter will also miss a month. Although not a prolific scorer, Carter’s play has been undeniably good and Gone Puck Wild readers voted him the best off-season addition (at the time.) To help ease the pain, I’ll break down each injury and the impact it has on the player.

Jason Zucker’s Clavicle:

The Wild’s second leading goal scorer (18) took a heavy hit along the boards from Vancouver’s Luca Sbisa in last night’s 5-3 win and immediately left the ice. The Wild released a brief statement today stating Zucker had a clavicle fracture and will have surgery on Thursday.

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The Clavicle, or collarbone,  is a long, thin bone that attaches the shoulder to the rib cage near the top of the Sternum (breastbone.) The clavicle assists in range of motion for the arm and shoulder blade, making fractures both fairly common and bad news. According to the Orthopedic Medicine department at Johns Hopkins, Clavicle injuries are nearly impossible to splint in a way that is comfortable and practical for the patient. Even without surgery, recovery time for Clavicular fractures is generally 10-12 weeks. Adding in surgery, which includes plates, pins, and screws to hold the bone together as it heals, does not extend recovery time.

So, unless the Wild make a very deep playoff run, we likely won’t see Jason Zucker on the until the 2015-2016 season. This marks the second time the extremley promising forward will miss the back end of the season due to injury. Last season, it was his knee.

The loss of Zucker is undeniably huge. He’s fast, skilled, and never gives up on a play. Nino Niederreiter will take his place on the second line for the foreseeable future.

Ryan Carter’s Shoulder:

The Wild are saying Carter is out one month with a non-specified upper-body injury. After watching him crash shoulder first in to the boards last night, I’m in the majority of people that believe he’s got a shoulder injury. Here’s what Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune had to say via his twitter account:

Brett Sutter will get his second look as a member of the Wild in place of Carter, but Carter is a big part of the Wild’s bottom-6 and penalty kill.

Let’s hope the Wild can keep up its streak without two big parts of the team. They’ve done it before, so i’m optimistic.

Next: Is Christian Folin Playing Worse Than Nate Prosser?