It appears the New Jersey Devils did not sage their locker room, as Brenden Dillon said they should.
Amid their tilt with the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday, the Devils lost two forwards in the first period of the game.
First, Zack MacEwen took a big hit by Connor Murphy behind the Devils’ goal that left him looking uncomfortable. The Devils forward tried to finish his shift, however, hobbled off the ice and to the Devils locker room to be evaluated.
If losing MacEwan wasn’t enough, the Devils then lost Cody Glass. The Devils center lost an edge on a back check while trying to intercept a pass to break up a scoring chance. Glass went crashing into the boards and appeared to injure his upper-body.
After the first intermission concluded and both teams returned to the ice for the second period, Glass emerged from the Devils’ locker room, yet, MacEwan did not.
Glass proceeded to take one shift in the second period, yet realized he was too injured to go on and went back to the locker room, where he would remain.
Both Glass and MacEwan have already been injured this season. MacEwan suffered an upper-body injury in the first game he played for New Jersey—on Oct. 13th vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning—after he was acquired from the Ottawa Senators.
Similarly, Glass was injured on October 22nd, and missed seven games before returning against the Montreal Canadiens.
The Devils are in the trenches of the injury bug. If Glass, MacEwan, or both miss time, it will be their second injury stints, while the Devils are already missing key players in Connor Brown, Evgenii Dadonov, Brett Pesce, and Dougie Hamilton. All while Johnathan Kovacevic still has yet to make his season debut as he continues his recovery from offseason knee surgery.
Sheldon Keefe has his work cut out for him as the Devils injuries continue to pile up.
