Vancouver Canucks’ Phillip Di Giuseppe leaves game vs. Senators early with injury

The Vancouver Canucks announced that winger Phillip Di Giuseppe has left Tuesday’s game against the Ottawa Senators with an injury.

It’s unknown as to what caused the injury, just that it occurred early in the first period before Di Giuseppe, 30, left the game. The Canucks have yet to confirm what the injury is, or how long of a timeline they’ll be looking at before he returns to the lineup. He left with one shot on goal and three shifts in 2:13 of ice time as the Canucks went on to win the game 6-3.

Di Giuseppe has had a solid season by his standards, with three goals and five assists for eight points in 31 games. It puts him on pace for 21 points in a full 82-game season, which would be a career-high for him. He’s also been a solid defensive forward in his career, with a defensive goals above replacement of 2.8 since 2019-20 despite usually playing for defensively poor teams.

Di Giuseppe was a second-round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2012 NHL Draft, and after six seasons with the organization, he was claimed off of waivers by the Nashville Predators in 2019. He finished the year with the Preds and then signed with the New York Rangers the following year, where he then spent two seasons before joining the Canucks organization in the 2021 offseason.

Di Giuseppe is in the first year of a two-year contract with a $775,000 cap hit, one he as an extension late into the 2022-23 season.

With Di Giuseppe out of the game, his linemates in J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser saw an array of linemates to close out the game, including Pius Suter, Ilya Mikheyev, Dakota Joshua, Nils Hoglander and Conor Garland. Center Nils Aman was their only healthy scratch up front, so he’ll likely draw into the lineup if Di Giuseppe is out for any length of time unless another roster move is made.

The Canucks will look to build on their win over the Sens when they go to St. Louis to play the Blues on Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. They currently sit in first in the Pacific Division with a 24-10-3 record.