Mattias Ekholm leaves game against Florida Panthers after collision into the boards, will not return
The Swedish blueliner took an awkward hit into the end boards during Sunday's game.
The injury bug is starting to bite the Nashville Predators.
Colin Wilson left yesterday's game against the New York Rangers and did not suit up for this afternoon's contest against the Florida Panthers. Then, during the second period in Surise, Mattias Ekholm lost his footing chasing down a puck and collided into the boards, sandwiched between them and a couple of Panthers players.
Eep. That doesn't look good. Jimmy Hayes interferes with Ekholm just enough to throw him off balance, and he falls headfirst into the boards. If that isn't bad enough, Aleksander Barkov comes in for a hit, but with Ekholm falling, ends up smooshing him harder into the boards. Ekholm would leave down the tunnel and not return to the game.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p>Ekholm will not return for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Preds?src=hash">#Preds</a>. Upper body injury.</p>— Willy Daunic (@WillyD1025) <a href="https://twitter.com/WillyD1025/status/564541642497998848">February 8, 2015</a></blockquote>
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There didn't seem to be any malice or intent there. Just an unfortunate turn of events that ended poorly for the Preds' blueliner. We'll have to see how much time, if any, Ekholm misses. With Ryan Ellis already on the shelf for who knows how long, that means Nashville's entire second defense pairing could be out of commission for the foreseeable future. That is, to use the technical term, bad.