Nicolas Hague Out Week-To-Week

It hasn’t been a great first season with the Predators for defenseman Nicolas Hague.  Nashville’s key trade acquisition missed the first few weeks of the season with an upper-body injury and now it appears he’ll be out for a while once again.  The team announced (Twitter link) that Hague is listed as week-to-week with a lower-body injury.

The Preds surprisingly traded for the 27-year-old, sending a pair of useful veterans in Jeremy Lauzon and Colton Sissons (with 50% retention of his contract) to Vegas to acquire him.  More surprisingly, they then handed him a four-year, $22MM deal despite the fact Hague spent a lot of his time with Vegas on the third pairing.  Clearly, the contract indicated a belief that the Predators felt that he was capable of playing a bigger role.

Not surprisingly, Hague is indeed playing more than he has before with his 19:20 ATOI being the highest of his seven-year NHL career.  It hasn’t resulted in a big uptick in production, however, as he’s sitting at two goals and nine assists in 41 games, output that’s right in line with his career production.  Hague is averaging two minutes per game on Nashville’s penalty kill and his absence will be felt in that regard.

It’s not all bad news for Nashville, however.  On the one hand, a week-to-week designation isn’t ideal but we’re less than two weeks away from the Olympic break and a three-week shutdown.  Accordingly, it’s possible that he misses a little more than a month of action but is only sidelined for seven games overall.

Meanwhile, Hague was replaced in today’s lineup by blueliner Adam Wilsby who returned from a lower-body injury himself, one that kept him out of the lineup for a week and a half.  The 25-year-old has a goal and six assists in 35 games so far this season while averaging just under 17 minutes per night of playing time.