Dustin Byfuglien suffers setback in his road to recovery.

Bad news for Big Buff.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Dustin Byfuglien suffers setback in his road to recovery.
Keystone Press

The Winnipeg Jets got some bad news on Saturday.

During the Hockey Night In Canada broadcast on Saturday night Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Nick Kypreos revealed that Winnipeg Jets star defenseman Dustin Byfuglien has suffered a setback in his recovery from injury and as a result is now expected to miss additional time out of the line up. This marks a stark contrast from the comments the members of the Jets organizatrion have been making over the past several days. 

"Staying the on the injury front, a setback for Dustin Byfuglien," said Kypreos. "Doesn't sound like a major one but he was on the road.... and he went back home, didn't feel right. He's battling an ankle injury, he's getting reevaluated with the Winnipeg doctors."

Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice was quick to point out that Dustin Byfuglien returning back to Winnipeg in the midst of the Jets current road trip was not a setback but Kypreos' latest report now disputes that. Byfugliuen has been dealing with a nagging ankle injury suffered all the way back in December, one that has resulted in him appearing in just 5 total games for the Jets since suffering the injury. The idea that he could be out for longer now would seemingly push his return sometime closer to the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, not much time to catch up to game speed before the games really matter. 

That is exactly what Kypreos is reporting however and in site of the fact that Byfuglien was traveling on this most recent road trip it now sounds like he could miss a few more weeks of action. Kypreos was able to provide a time table for Byfuglien's expected return to the line up and had it going for up to two weeks, and even that may have been optimistic based on his wording.

"The hope is still anywhere between ten and fourteen days in terms of catching those last few games of the regular season before the real season starts," added Kypreos.

If a two week absence is what the Jets are hoping for there can be no question that this has indeed been a setback in his recovery. What the Jets have to hope for now is that it won't cost them in the playoffs.

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