from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

The sports mantra “next man up” often seems delusionary to people outside of the team trying to fool itself into believing a major injury shouldn’t matter.

It depends who is injured and who is next up, of course. But most times, injuries matter. And the farther up the lineup they occur, the more they matter, especially for teams without superior depth.

The Vancouver Canucks do not have enough quality depth even when everyone is healthy.

When their captain – literally and figuratively – hobbled off the ice on Monday, Bo Horvat’s apparent leg injury meant there were no healthy centres left from the four who started the National Hockey League season for Vancouver.

Elite forward Elias Pettersson has been out since March 2 with a reported wrist injury that was initially regarded as day-to-day but will be going on four weeks, at least, before he returns. Third-line centre and penalty-killer Brandon Sutter, who had been playing through an undisclosed injury, was unable to play Monday against the Winnipeg Jets. Fourth-line centre Jay Beagle has missed six games with an unknown injury.

continued