The Injury Bug: Is Zack Kassian Out for the Season?

It seems like it’s been months since we last saw Zack Kassian.

The mercurial winger has had his ups and downs in 2014-2015, spending much of the first half of the season in the coaches’ doghouse before finding a home with the Sedins on Vancouver’s first line, but has since completely dropped off the face of the Earth with a reported back injury.

The Canucks have kept completely silent about the nature of Kassian’s ailment, but rumblings from those supposedly in the know are starting to suggest that it’s pretty severe and the big winger isn’t due back any time soon. In fact, he may be completely done for the foreseeable future.

The last update we have on Kassian is from April 11th, from Jason Botchford on a radio hit. He indicated that Kassian’s injury was fairly significant and Vancouver was hopeful to have him back in the first round, but the team has been completely silent on Kassian’s absence for over a month now. Kassian last played on March 14th against the Toronto Maple Leafs, before suffering from “back spasms” and disappearing from the public eye.

First of all, back issues are notoriously difficult to pin down and have a nasty habit of reoccurring once an injury has happened, so “player out with back injury” is always cause for concern. Add to the fact that Kassian’s allegedly been unable to leave his bed some days due to the pain and suffered a few setbacks, and you get a picture of a player who’s really not close to playing any time soon.

Recent rumours and rumblings seem to indicate that Kassian isn’t returning this season as well. First of all, we have this tweet from Garry Valk that has since been deleted:

Given that Valk’s contacts are largely in the Canucks sphere and that no other player is injured, it seems likely that if he’s talking about a specific player, he’s talking about Kassian. Of course, a severe back injury would necessitate surgery, and surgery would place Kassian on the IR for a long time – we’re talking a timeline of months here, not days or weeks.

Add to that the fact that Blake Price reportedly said that Kassian will be done for the year on the radio today, and there’s a lot of smoke starting to billow out of the Kassian situation. (We’ll include audio once it becomes available)

EDIT: Here is the audio from TSN 1040 today, where Price discloses that he heard “3 or 4 days ago” that Kassian is done for the year, per “a third-party source.” The discussion starts around the 45:00 minute mark.

Given what we already knew about the extent and severity of Kassian’s injury, the rumblings around him being shut down should hardly come as a surprise. Personally, I would guess that he remains out of the public eye until at least the first round of the playoffs is over, then will be shut down completely going forward. Surgery also seems likely if symptoms include “not able to leave bed because of the pain.”

While Kassian is a very strong point producer per minute and allowed Vancouver some great lineup flexibility by finding a home with the Sedins, it’s tough to make the argument that his hockey skills are being missed by the Canucks, particularly with his poor scoring chance differential in mind. Still, this playoff series has a decided physical edge to it, and Kassian would relish the opportunity to do for the Canucks what Michael Ferland has done for the Flames. It’s a shame he’s not healthy.