“Significant” Injury for Blue Jackets’ Boone Jenner

The Columbus Blue Jackets will be starting the season without their captain Boone Jenner due to an upper-body injury. And now, insider Elliotte Friedman is reporting on his 32 Thoughts podcast that the injury looks “significant”:

I don’t like what I’m hearing. We’ll see what Jenner comes up with (on a second opinion), but I don’t like what I’m hearing. It sounds like a pretty significant injury. I feel terrible for Jenner. I feel terrible for the Blue Jackets, who have been through an awful time of late... It sounds like it's going to be quite a while.

Jenner was hit and fell awkwardly into the boards during a Jackets practice last week, and it appears that that unfortunate incident will result in the veteran missing extended time.

Fellow insider Aaron Portzline of the Athletic has even suggested that he could miss "multiple months."

This continues a run of bad injury luck for Jenner over the past four seasons, as he's missed 76 games over that time (nearly 20 games per year on average).

A second-round pick in the 2011 NHL Draft by Columbus, Jennner has spent his entire 11-year career with the team and has compiled 192 goals and 172 assists for 364 total points in 715 games. The 6'2", 200-pounder has also handed out 1,619 hits.

Last year, he recorded his third straight 20-goal season, despite all the time missed.

For the Blue Jackets, as Friedman alluded to, it's been an awful offseason, of course, as they've had to deal with the tragic death of Johnny Gaudreau.