The Predators announced on Wednesday afternoon what we all feared. Starting goaltender Juuse Saros is out for the last two regular-season games for Nashville.
Juuse Saros (lower-body injury) will not play in Nashville’s final two regular-season games. Goaltender Connor Ingram has been recalled from Milwaukee (AHL). https://t.co/fVjxcSQTXX
— x – Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) April 27, 2022
Nashville will see David Rittich and Connor Ingram between the pipes.
Ingram’s stats from his Milwaukee season are fairly solid: 30-17-7 over 54 games with a .915 Sv%. Ingram often starts multiple games in a row behind a fluctuating Milwaukee lineup. He won his NHL debut against the Wild in October, joining Nashville legend Pekka Rinne as the only other Nashville goalie to win in his debut. Ingram was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the third round in 2016.
Rittich’s stat line is far less impressive, owning a .883 Sv% over 16 games (11 starts). If Saros’s injury is worse than expected, there will certainly be questions about which Nashville netminder starts in Game 1.
It’s not exactly clear where Saros was injured last night – it was a non-contact injury. Jeff Adams seems to think it’s in the sequence below:
Here is what seems to be Saros’s injury. Roughly 7:52 left in the 3rd, his left skate gets hung up on the post. He’s clearly laboring after this and exits at the next whistle. #Preds pic.twitter.com/yTGy8EIuvc
— Jeff Adams (@JeffAdams) April 27, 2022
We wish the best for Little Bear as he recovers, but Nashville’s playoff chances are severely slashed without Saros in net.