Breaking:So Sad; I Might Not Return Gabriel Vilardi Declares…
Gabriel Vilardi’s lack of durability — which have been the biggest challenge thus far in his fledgling career — has continued to be an issue during his first season with the Winnipeg Jets.
Vilardi is currently dealing with a nagging upper-body injury the Jets’ organization has called “day to day” but has caused him to miss the last six games over the past two weeks. The 24 year old last played on Feb.
29 in a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars; it was in that game he he either suffered or exacerbated the injury — he was stapled to the bench for the back half of it because he wasn’t feeling right.
Vilardi has still not begun skating, head coach Rick Bowness said Monday.
He appears to not be recovering as fast as initially hoped as the team had said he was going to travel on the two-game road trip last weekend, but ended up leaving him in Winnipeg instead as they trekked to Seattle and Vancouver for back-to-back games.
The timeline for Vilardi’s return remains unclear as Bowness said “we’re not sure when he’s going to skate,” but that it “could be Wednesday, Thursday. Let’s say we hope he skates this week.”
Even if Vilardi does begin skating Wednesday, which is far from a certainty, he’ll likely miss at least two more games — on Wednesday against the Nashville Predators and Friday against the Anaheim Ducks — as he will still need to work his way back to game speed.
The injury is the third of Vilardi’s maiden campaign since being acquired from the Los Angeles Kings last June as the key piece in return for Pierre-Luc Dubois.
His season got off to an inauspicious start as on Oct. 17, he suffered an MCL sprain when being tripped from behind by former teammate Blake Lizotte and missed 16 games as a result.
He also missed two games in January due to an undisclosed lower-body injury.
Unfortunately, considering Vilardi’s extensive injury history, Jets’ brass must be increasingly concerned that they seem to have another player who’s a force when in the lineup but cannot be counted on to stay in it, much like Nikolaj Ehlers and Cole Perfetti before this season.
They surely would like to offer him a longer-term contract after his two-year bridge deal is up after next season, but cannot — and should not — until he does something he has never done: stay healthy for an entire campaign.
Even.Bowness has expressed frustration. “Every time he seems to get going, he gets another injury,” he lamented on March 8.
Last season, Vilardi was limited to 63 games due to a concussion but still set career highs with 21 goals and 18 assists for 41 points.
He was also hampered by a chronic back injury from the time he was 17 and playing in the Ontario Hockey League through 2019-20, where he played 42 games between the Kings and American Hockey League affiliate Ontario Reign. The season prior, 2018-19, he played just four OHL games.
There were several months — I wouldn’t say years, but several months — where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be playing hockey for my life, which is pretty scary because it’s all I’d ever known, all I ever wanted to do,” Vilardi told the Los Angeles Times in November, 2022. (From ‘Column: A bad back nearly cost the Kings’ Gabe Vilardi his career. Now he’s thriving,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2, 2022.
Gabi looking at all these controversies around his injury state only declared that there are possibilities I might not come back.