Golden Knights star center lands on IR after missing past two weeks

The Vegas Golden Knights have moved forward Ivan Barbashev to injured reserve, retroactive to Dec. 16, per Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Barbshev has missed Vegas’ last six games with an upper-body injury, after leaving the team’s Dec. 15 matchup at the end of the first period. He didn’t appear to suffer a noticeable injury, leaving the question of where or how Barbashev suffered his now multi-week injury up in the air. A retroactive IR placement will allow Vegas to activate Barbashev as soon as he returns to full health.

In the meantime, the Golden Knights have also brought forward Tanner Laczynski back to the NHL roster. The move comes just four days after Vegas moved Laczynski back to the minor leagues, ending his previous recall at 11 days. Laczynski stepped into his first five games of the season before being sent down. He didn’t manage any scoring, but did record six penalty minutes and a -1, while serving on Vegas’ fourth line. They were Laczynski’s first five games as a member of the Golden Knights. He spent the first three seasons of his NHL career with the Philadelphia Flyers, who selected him in the sixth round of the 2016 NHL Draft. Serving primarily as a depth fill-in, Laczynski totaled 38 games with the Flyers — 32 of those coming last season, when he netted the first four points of his NHL career. He’s otherwise been a career minor leaguer, combining for 94 points across 111 games and five seasons, in the AHL.

Laczynski has performed well enough to hold down Vegas’ fourth line, but the Golden Knights are still sincerely missing Barbashev’s production. The bulky Russian has 30 points, split evenly, in 31 games this season — placing Barbashev in a three-way tie for second on the team in scoring, alongside Mark Stone and Shea Theodore. Barbashev is on an 82-game pace of 79 points, which would smash his previous career-high in scoring: 60 points set with the St. Louis Blues in 2021-22. He’ll need to return soon to continue chasing that milestone, but he should immediately step back into the top-six when he is healthy again.