Coach Jeff Daniels announced Wednesday that defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani will miss the remainder of the season due to a nagging injury that he struggled with for most of the season. The 26-year-old, who won the AHL’s defenseman of the year award two seasons ago, had missed a total of 28 games over three separate, prolonged stints.
“He’s been a big part of our back end all year, but we’ve dealt with injuries all year and we’ll deal with this one too,” said Daniels.
Gragnani had played in the Checkers’ last four games, earning one assist, after missing the previous seven. He scored 28 points in 42 games during his first season with the Checkers, including 25 assists that rank second on the team behind Chris Terry’s 28.
The majority of Gragnani’s points (21) came on the power-play, where he is one of the league’s elite point men. Despite missing so much time, he still ranked tied for fifth in the AHL with 18 assists on the man advantage, just one off the league lead. At the time of his most recent return to the lineup on March 29, the Checkers’ power play converted at a noticeably higher rate with him in the lineup (22.3 percent) than without him (14.7 percent).
The Checkers will still have six defensemen available to play on Thursday thanks to Brett Bellemore’s return from Carolina two days earlier.
