The Capitals continue to battle the injury bug following their annual western Canada road trip. Here is the latest report as of 12:00 PM on Thursday (11/2). 

Brett Connolly
Brett Connolly did not participate in Thursday’s morning skate. He has been out since sustaining an upper body injury in the Vancouver game last Thursday (10/26). Connolly was placed in the NHL’s “Concussion Protocol” during the game against the Canucks. It is likely that Connolly will miss Thursday’s game against the Islanders.

Andre Burakovsky
Burakovsky underwent a successful surgery on his fractured left thumb on October 24th. Burakovsky sustained the injury during the third period against the Florida Panthers on Oct. 21. Based on the nature of this procedure, Burakovsky is expected to miss six-to-eight weeks. Burakovsky was placed on long-term injured reserve on the 24th. This means Burakovsky will likely return in mid-to-late December.

Matt Niskanen
Defenseman Matt Niskanen suffered an injury to his left thumb against the Devils on October 13th and was subsequently placed on long-term injured reserve. Niskanen isn’t eligible to play again until Nov. 7, but hasn’t joined the team in a practice yet.  Niskanen has been skating with strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish before practices.

Tyler Graovac
Tyler Graovac is still listed as “week-to-week” with an upper body that he suffered against Toronto. Graovac skated with the team for the first time this morning (Thursday 11/2).

GAMES MISSED:
The Capitals have currently lost 16 man-games through the first 12 games of the season. Here is the breakdown of players and man-games lost to date.

Frame of Reference:
The Capitals lost an NHL-low 49 man-games to injury last season. The Vancouver Canucks led the league with 439 man-games lost. Eight teams in the National Hockey League lost fewer than 150 man-games to injury in the 2016/17 season. All eight of those teams qualified for the post-season, however six of them were eliminated in round 1.

Here are the player and games breakdown of the man-games lost for the 2016-2017 Washington Capitals, as provided by NHL injury viz.

Injuries and Post-season
The Penguins were the 7th most injured team and the Predators the 13th most injured team during the 2016-2017 season. The following chart details total man-games lost, total wins and standings points lost due to injury, as compiled by mangameslost.com.