Just when you thought things might be looking up for the Vancouver Canucks, something new pops up. This time, that something is an illness, rather than an injury. As a result, starting goalie Kevin Lankinen and veteran defenseman Derek Forbort are both missing Saturday night's matchup with the Boston Bruins.
The first alarms were set off on Saturday morning when the Canucks announced that rookie goalie Arturs Silovs, who was sent down to the AHL once Thatcher Demko returned to the lineup, was re-called to the NHL under emergency conditions.
This transaction followed the Canucks' usual salary cap shenanigans, which included the re-calls of forwards Aatu Raty and Max Sasson and defenseman Mark Friedman. Many suspected that Demko had aggravated his chronic knee injury, but it was later revealed that Lankinen and Forbort are both sick.
Canucks dealing with the flu? A bug?
"Yeah, there's a little bit of a bug going through our team," Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet said on Saturday after morning skate. "(Lankinen and Forbort) caught it, so, keep them away from the guys. Vinny (Desharnais) had a bit of the flu, too, so that's why we had the day off yesterday, to not spread it around."
Tocchet did say that Vincent Desharnais, who has been a healthy scratch as of late, has the flu, but the lack of specifics makes it unclear whether Forbort and Lankinen have the flu as well or if they are just feeling under the weather in general.
Either way, though, both players are going to be big losses for a Canucks team that has been ravaged by injuries and other things throughout much of the early portion of this season. Forbort had just returned from a six-week absence that was caused by his lower-body injury, playing 19:39 in the Canucks' 4-0 shutout win over Florida on Thursday.
And that isn't the first time Forbort has played a game and went out again this season. After missing two weeks following the passing of his father, Forbort played on Nov. 2 against the Sharks, then suffered the lower-body injury that kept him on the shelf until Thursday.
It has been a rough go for Forbort, in particular, who will now have to battle through adversity one more time before trying to get back to normal on the ice again.