Utah Hockey Club places 13-year veteran on IR

The Utah Hockey Club will have one missing forward for Thursday night’s game against the Detroit Red Wings. Utah announced it has placed center Nick Bjugstad on the injured reserve due to an upper-body injury.

Earlier in the week, multiple outlets reported that Bjugstad was dealing with an illness. Although the events are mutually exclusive, we know that Bjugstad is dealing more with a physical ailment than an illness.

No distinction has been made, but Utah will likely make the injury designation retroactive to Bjugstad’s most recent game on March 1. The team had a long four-day break between games, and making the IR placement retroactive to last Saturday would make Bjugstad eligible for activation after Friday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Still, it won’t be a major missing piece for Utah over the next couple of games. The team has relegated Bjugstad to a third-line role after spending much of last season in the team’s top six. He’s scored five goals and 10 assists in 53 games, averaging 12:39 of ice time. The 2024-25 campaign will be Bjugstad’s lowest-scoring season since his dreadful 2021-21 season with the Minnesota Wild.

Utah has been busy over the last 24 hours in locking up its pending unrestricted free agents to new extensions. Given that the team hasn’t appeared motivated to do the same with Bjugstad, there was an outside chance that the team would look to move him ahead of Friday's trade deadline. There’s still a non-zero chance Bjugstad is moved, but his poor production and injury may have nixed any remaining chance.