Early Injury Outlook: what our projections already assume

The draft board has not caught up on some of these.

11 players carry an injury into camp that is worth a draft decision: 7 with a reported return date and 4 still open. Every timeline below is reported by CBS Sports with the day it was reported, because an injury note without an attribution and a date is a rumour.

The useful part is not the list. It is that our projections have already priced these timelines, and priced them harder than the calendar does. Goalies are counted in starts throughout, since a healthy backup never starts every game his club plays and games would flatter him.

Take each reported return date at face value, count the games left on the schedule after it, and every one of the 6 skaters would be available for more games than we project them to play: Troy Terry (64 available, we have 46), Brad Marchand (80 available, we have 65), Stefan Noesen (78 available, we have 65). That gap is deliberate. A return date is the first day a player could dress, not the day he is himself again, and it prices no setback. We assume both.

The ones that move a draft

Press a scenario. The games come from the club's real schedule and the scoring rate is our projection's, so the only thing moving is the calendar. Rates are quoted per 82 games, the usual fantasy convention, while the season itself is 84 and the games column counts real dates.

The 7 with a return date

• Andersen is based on projected games vs team games.

The 4 with no date, where we are least checkable

These carry no reported return date at all, only a status. That makes the games number below the least verifiable figure in this article and the one doing the most work, so it is worth saying plainly what it represents: our own read of the role, discounted for a player who has not been cleared, rather than anything reported.

Thatcher Demko is the sharpest of them. We have him at 26 and if he can find his game he'll be a valuable trade deadline or mid-season trade chip.

What to do with it

Where a player is still going near his healthy price, the reported date is doing no work in the room, and the scenarios above are the range you are actually buying. Where he has fallen further than the timeline justifies, the same table is the argument for taking him.

Notes

Timelines and injury descriptions reported by CBS Sports, each with its own report date. Draft positions are the average of the ESPN and Fantrax public boards. Games are counted from the 2026-27 schedule, which opens September 29. Projected games and points come from the projection set the draft portal and the workbook both read.