It’s a macabre September tradition to anticipate injuries that make opening night roster decisions easier to forecast.
On Tuesday, 2017’s version of that exercise got off to an earlier than expected start.
It’s not an injury to one of the rookies in pre-training camp — which began only Friday — but rather a returning roster player whose not yet officially in camp: Alan Quine is expected to be out four to six weeks, casting some intrigue on a forward roster spot that was already in bubble territory.
Quine appeared in 61 games last season, but we pegged him for the roster bubble because if rookies Josh Ho-Sang and Mathew Barzal and sophomore Anthony Beauvillier each make convincing cases to start the season in the NHL, it would be at the expense of an early-career veteran like Quine and/or Shane Prince.