Luca Sbisa in walking boot, placed on Injured Reserve

The Vancouver Canucks lost a defenceman as quickly as they gained one this morning. While Dan Hamhuis will return to the lineup for tonight’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers, head coach Willie Desjardins confirmed today that Swiss Scapegoat Luca Sbisa will is out of the lineup with an injury, and that he’s been placed on injured reserve.

Desjardins positioned Sbisa’s timeline as not day-to-day, stating that “he’ll be out longer than that”. To back this up, Sbisa was placed on injured reserve, which requires a minimum of seven days out of the lineup. Sbisa was seen wearing a walking boot, implying that he suffered a foot injury.

Sbisa played through until the end of Friday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes, and it’s hard to see a moment where he could have been hurt. He had a 35-minute gap between his second-last and last blocked shot, but he didn’t react negatively to either occurrence. His last shift was with a minute left in the third period. With that said, he played 16:40, his lowest allotted ice time since the season opener, while playing a typical 24 shifts, leading you to believe that he might have played through his ailment. but couldn’t handle the longer shifts.

Canucks fans will no doubt be split in their reaction to this move. Many hope that the 26-year-old will finally reach the potential that he showed as a first-round pick who made the Flyers as a 19-year-old, but his tenure in Vancouver has been questionable at best. After a decent start, Sbisa has dipped to the bottom of the possession barrel. His giveaway numbers have dropped this year though that could be a byproduct of being given the puck less rather than him becoming more efficient.

This also gives Yannick Weber a bit more roster security, as he attempts to prove that he can return to being a regular in the Canucks’ pairings.

At the end of the day, though, you never want to see someone get hurt. From a human perspective, you have to hope that he recovers quick. From a hockey perspective, this may not be the worst thing in the world.