Columbus Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski leaves game early with upper body injury

Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski will not be returning to Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers after suffering an upper body injury, according to the team.

Werenski suffered the injury late in the first period after going for a hit on Flyers forward Travis Konecny. Werenski missed Konecny slightly, and fell awkwardly into the boards as a result. He had one goal and one assist in 6:03 of ice time before leaving the game.

There is currently no reports on the severity of the injury or how long Werenski will be out of the lineup.

Vladislav Gavrikov replaced Werenski on the top pair alongside Nick Blankenburg in the game. The Blue Jackets currently have no other defenseman on their 23 man roster, so someone will have to be called up from the Cleveland Monsters to replace Werenski if the injury is long term.

Werenski was off to a strong start this season, with three goals and eight points in 13 games for the Blue Jackets. He’s coming off a career high in points in 2021-22, where he had 11 goals, 37 assists, and 48 points in 68 games in his first season leading the Blue Jackets blueline without Seth Jones.

The former 8th overall pick for Columbus from the 2015 NHL draft has spent all seven seasons of his career with the Blue Jackets. He’s currently in the first year of a pricey extension that sees him make an average annual value of $9,583,333 for the next six seasons.

The injury would be a big hit to the Blue Jackets blue line if Werenski were to be out for a substantial amount of time. They already have a thin blue line this season that hasn’t performed too well in the early part of the season, and are missing Adam Boqvist from the lineup as well, who was part of the return for the Seth Jones trade.