Arizona Coyotes forward Nick Schmaltz day-to-day with upper-body injury

The Arizona Coyotes will be without forward Nick Schmaltz on a day-to-day basis as he recovers from an upper-body injury, the club announced Saturday afternoon.

Schmaltz, 26, has seven goals and 16 points in 19 games with the Coyotes this season. The team said he suffered the injury during Thursday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Coyotes (12–16–5) are currently riding a three-game winning streak, having defeated Toronto, Colorado, and Los Angeles over that stretch; they currently lead the Tampa Bay Lightning by a 2–1 score in the first period of Saturday’s game at Amalie Arena.

This is Schmaltz’s second injury-related absence of the season. The right-handed forward previously missed more than a month of action after suffering an upper-body injury in the first period of the Coyotes’ season-opening game against the Pittsburgh Penguins back on October 13.

Widely expected to compete for the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, the Coyotes have been surprisingly competitive out of the gate this season. They’re 11 points up on the last-place Chicago Blackhawks and currently own one of the NHL’s top home records (7–3–2). They’ve sold out each of their first 12 games at the brand-new Mullett Arena (although that’s to be expected given its NHL seating capacity is 4,600).

The Coyotes acquired Schmaltz from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini back in 2018, during John Chayka’s tenure as the team’s general manager. Schmaltz, then a pending RFA, subsequently signed a seven-year, $5.85 million extension to remain in Arizona through 2026.

The Blackhawks originally selected Schmaltz in the first round (No. 20 overall) of the 2014 NHL Draft. He made his NHL debut with Chicago in 2016–17 and scored 21 goals with the team the following season. Through 383 career NHL contests with Chicago and Arizona, the Madison, WI product has 85 goals and 257 points.