The Canucks brought in Derek Forbort during the offseason, effectively as a replacement for the departed Ian Cole on the blue line. In fact, you could make the case that Forbort was a younger, bigger and cheaper version of Cole.
However, after playing three games in Vancouver, Forbort suddenly had to leave the team for personal reasons. It eventually came out that he unfortunately had to take a personal leave of absence, due to the passing of his father.
The 32-year-old eventually returned and played against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night, in a game which doubled as the 500th NHL appearance of his career. Now though, he has potentially suffered some more bad news, albeit not nearly on the same level as previously.
As reported by Harman Dayal of The Athletic, Forbort got shaken up during a drill on Monday. As a result, he had to leave practice early and seemed to favouring his leg.
There have been no further updates at the time of writing, with the understandable hope for the Canucks that the situation with Forbort is nothing serious. So far on the season he has produced one point, a -2 rating and five blocks, while averaging 16:30 of ice time in his four regular season appearances.
Better news with Demko
On the more positive side of injury news, Thatcher Demko is hopeful of returning to full team practice at some point this week. This encouraging update came courtesy of TSN insider Darren Dreger, during an appearance on Monday's edition of Sekeres and Price.
Now understandably, there will be plenty of people who will be weary of this latest update, just because of how long Demko has been out for. This is not a shot at the goalie though, who has been dealing with an extremely rare hockey injury, in the form of a popliteus muscle issue on the back of his knee.
However, this latest news follows previous positive updates surrounding Demko just last week, which included Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie and Dhali - The Team suggesting he could be back in action by mid-November. Then, as reported by Patrick Johnston of The Province, the netminder was spotted on the ice ahead of team practice on Friday, working with goalie coach Marko Torenius.
Back playing inside three weeks
Dreger similarly discussed the timeline for the 28-year-old actually playing again, while speaking on Sekeres and Price. He said:
""I would say for Demko, a return to the crease in terms of game action is inside three weeks, but that timeline is probably going to either be shortened -- I don’t think it’ll be lengthened -- but it could be shortened, depending on how he feels after a couple of practice.""
Of course, even when Demko does return to the crease for the Canucks, there will still be plenty of concerns about if he can remain healthy. As harsh as this may be to say, it doesn't change the reality that he's had durability issues ever since taking over as the number one goalie in Vancouver.
Overall though, all things considered, this latest update in respect of the two-time NHL All-Star is excellent for all concerned. As strong as the Canucks roster is, they will be even better with him back between the pipes.