Sabres defenseman Mattias Samuelsson requires surgical procedure to restore an upper-body damage and can miss the remainder of the 2023-24 marketing campaign because of this, the team announced Sunday.
Samuelsson, 23, missed 4 out of the final six video games earlier than the All-Star break with upper-body accidents and was listed as day-to-day. The 2018 second-round choose finishes the 2023-24 season with one objective, six assists, seven factors, and a +4 score in 41 video games.
The son of long-time Flyers blue-liner Kjell Samuelsson put up the most effective two-way numbers of his younger profession this season, the primary in a seven-year, $30M extension ($4.29M AAV) signed in October 2022.
His 50.8% Corsi share at even energy was a career-high, and his pairing with Rasmus Dahlin has seen probably the most utilization of any Sabres duo with 440 minutes collectively, per MoneyPuck.
The development in play is regardless of one other injury-plagued marketing campaign that prevented him from growing a lot consistency. He missed a handful of contests earlier within the season with a spattering of lower-body and undisclosed accidents, and he by no means performed greater than 14 consecutive video games.
His most regarding stat stays his low video games performed whole. Accidents restricted Samuelsson to 55 contests final season, which stays his career-high since coming into the league in 2021.
Even when he continues growing right into a top-pairing-caliber shutdown defenseman on a playoff crew, his lengthy damage historical past at a younger age creates important concern about his present contract, which runs by way of the 2029-30 season.
Samuelsson is eligible for LTIR, though the Sabres don’t want the cap aid that would supply. They continue to be with over $8M in projected cap area, per CapFriendly, and will accept inserting Samuelsson on commonplace injured reserve to open up a roster spot if needed.
The damage might translate into extra ice time for 2019 first-round choose Ryan Johnson, who hasn’t seemed misplaced in his first NHL exhibiting this yr.
He’s nonetheless searching for his first NHL objective by way of 30 video games, however he has added six assists and owns a promising 52.1% Corsi share at even energy whereas averaging 14:33 per sport.