Canucks place Filip Chytil on injured reserve

The announcement comes in the wake of Chytil sustaining an injury during Thursday’s 2-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Chytil sustained the injury towards the end of the first period of the game when he was skating towards the boards behind the net. He collided with a referee on the way there, and as a result, he lost balance and fell head first into the boards. Both Chytil and the referee got up at first and appeared to be fine, but Chytil eventually went to the locker room and did not return to the game.

If there’s any good news from this announcement, it’s that Chytil was placed on injured reserve and not long-term injured reserve. Since IR only frees up a roster space and not cap space like LTIR, it possibly means the Canucks aren’t expecting him to be out for too long, which is good news considering his injury history. That said, Vancouver has almost $18 million in salary cap space, so it’s also possible that they didn’t feel the need to place him on LTIR.

This comes after Chytil missed all but 12 games of the 2025-26 season due to injuries. He first sustained an upper-body injury in his sixth game to start last season, and missed 44 games as a result, and then after playing another six games, missed the remaining 26 games due to various injuries, including a facial fracture. He had three goals in the 12 games he did play last season, two coming in the opening game and the third coming in his fourth game.

It was another injury-plagued season for Chytil, as he has had horrendous luck in the health department in his NHL career. In 2024-25, he missed 25 games due to upper-body injuries and concussions; in 2023-24 he missed 72 regular season games and six playoff games with a head injury; in 2021-22 he missed 12 games to various injuries and illnesses; and even in 2020-21 he missed 14 with an upper-body injury.