The Blackhawks announced before Sunday's game that defenseman Seth Jones will miss the next 3-4 weeks with a right thumb injury.
Jones suffered the injury on a blocked shot in the second period of Saturday's 4-3 overtime loss to Buffalo. He finished the game, but obviously the damage was worse than originally expected when the adrenaline wore off afterward.
"That’s a big blow to our team," Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said. "You feel bad for him. He was playing well and playing a lot obviously. It’s always a big blow to an athlete when they put all that training in and get hurt, especially early in the season. But hopefully it’s not too long and we’ll just try and shift things around a little bit, especially on special teams.
"He plays a lot of big minutes for us and against top lines, so we’re just going to have to shuffle the deck a little bit and try and buy some time and win by committee on defense and wait until he gets back. That’ll be a boost for us when he does get back."
It's obviously a massive hit to Chicago's defense, which has leaned heavily on Jones this season. He's averaging 25:14 of ice time per game; for context, no other Blackhawk is averaging more than 20 minutes.
Filip Roos will draw into the lineup on Sunday in Jones' absence, but it will be Seth's brother Caleb that will take his spot as the power-play quarterback on the first unit and Roos will quarterback the second power-play unit.
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Jack Johnson is expected to start on the top pairing with Jake McCabe, who was paired with Jones in Saturday's contest vs. Buffalo. It's certainly going to be an all-hands-on-deck approach for the Blackhawks as they wait for Jones to return to the lineup.
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