NASHVILLE — Filip Forsberg will be out 4-6 weeks for the Nashville Predators with an upper-body injury.
The forward may have been injured Thursday in a 3-0 loss to the Arizona Coyotes. He was put on injured reserve before a 5-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday.
Nashville was already without injured forwards Viktor Arvidsson and Kyle Turris, and defenseman P.K. Subban.
“It’s part of the game,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “Obviously it’s big right now. It’s different when you lose one and it was just [Arvidsson]. It was ‘All right, well we’ll juggle it up a little bit.’ But I still think there was a real belief that we were going to be successful tonight.”
Forward Eeli Tolvanen scored his first NHL goal after being called up from Milwaukee of the American Hockey League on Saturday, and forward Anthony Richard played 7:22 in his NHL debut.
“Opportunity for guys like [Tolvanen and Richard] coming up here,” Laviolette said. “I thought [Richard] played a good game. Guys moving up the lineup, guys getting on the power play. Ryan Hartman delivered an excellent game tonight. Everybody did. So I think that’s what you need. When you have those players out of the lineup, I think it’s really important that other guys grab the rope.”
Forsberg led the Predators with 14 goals and 22 points in 26 games this season but scored two goals in his past eight games. He had 64 points (26 goals, 39 assists) in 64 games last season.
“It’s huge motivation,” Forsberg linemate Ryan Johansen said. “Like the two young guys [Tolvanen and Richard], you’ve got to step up. Guys need to step up, including myself, [goaltender Pekka Rinne and defenseman Roman Josi], throughout our whole lineup. We need everyone stepping up right now, and that’ll be motivation every game.”
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