Ottawa Senators defenseman Artem Zub won’t play in Saturday’s game vs. the Detroit Red Wings, head coach D.J. Smith confirmed to reporters on on Friday.
Zub suffered an upper-body injury in Wednesday’s game vs. the Washington Capitals. Early in the third period, Zub was hit in the head by an Alex Ovechkin shot. He left the game and did not return.
The Senators won the game 6-1.
Last season, Zub racked up three goals and seven assists for 10 points in only 53 appearances, as injuries took him out of the lineup for nearly 30 games.
Zub made his professional debut with Amur Khabarovsk in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in 2014-15. He was traded to SKA Saint Petersburg in December 2016 and helped the club win the Gargarin Cup.
He gained attention from NHL teams as a member of the gold medal-winning Russian squad at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
He went undrafted and was signed by the Senators in May 2020 to an NHL-standard entry-level contract. During Zub’s first season in Ottawa, he averaged over 18 minutes of ice-time and was regularly paired with top defenseman Thomas Chabot.
After his first season with the club, Zub signed a two-year, $5 million extension with the Senators. In December 2022, Zub was signed to a four-year, $18.4 million extension with Ottawa.
Zub hit career highs across the board in 2021-22, scoring six goals and 16 assists for 22 points in 81 games, while averaging 21:02 of ice-time.
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