The Phantoms are nearing the last month of their regular season, and just as they’ve found their lineup a bit depleted from call-ups to the Flyers, they’ve found themselves equally hit by the injury bug on top of that.
The weekend of February 28 was an unkind one to the Phantoms. That Friday game saw Massimo Rizzo take a pretty brutal blindside hit, and though he was able to finish the game, he was out of the lineup for the Saturday game on March 1, and he’s been out ever since. The Phantoms also lost Samu Tuomaala in that March 1 game, as he — already seemingly a bit banged up, as he’d been in and out of the lineup over the previous couple of weeks — got tangled up with a player along the boards in the third period,
It’s been about two weeks now that these two have been out, but we finally have an update on their statuses. For Rizzo, it’s relatively good news — per Phantoms Communications, he’s “progressing nicely” with an upper-body injury, and while he’s still questionable to return this weekend, it’s certainly a positive that he’s getting so close to returning that he can’t be ruled out entirely.
For Tuomaala, though, the news is a bigger blow. He’s dealing with a lower body injury that is expected to keep him out of the lineup for six-eight weeks. This means, assuming everything goes to schedule, he’ll likely be out until at least the first round of the playoffs.
Now, the Phantoms are set to get some reinforcements soon — Nikita Grebenkin and Givanni Smith should be available to join the team this weekend, and with the NCAA and CHL seasons winding down, they might well see some new faces joining the mix at their conclusion — but this is undoubtedly still a tough blow. Both Rizzo and Tuomaala have faced up and down seasons, but have been looking, of late, that their games have been trending again in the right direction. So the timing here is certainly suboptimal, but the hope is that they’ll both be back in action sooner rather than later, and can get back rolling and finish the season on a high note.
