- Nick Bjugstad had surgery last week to repair a torn left pectoral muscle
- The Devils put his recovery at four to six months, wiping out camp and the first half
- Read below for the rest of the Devils injury report and what Sunny Mehta said about Johnathan Kovacevic
Nick Bjugstad is going to lose a big chunk of the season before it even starts.
The Devils announced Thursday that the veteran forward underwent successful surgery last week to repair a torn left pectoral muscle, an injury he suffered earlier this month during off-season training. New Jersey pegged his recovery at roughly four to six months, so he is out of training camp and unlikely to play again until somewhere between mid-January and mid-March.
That timeline swallows the entire first half of his first full season in New Jersey.
Bjugstad came over from St. Louis in February and slotted straight into the bottom six. The results were thin. He managed two points in 26 games with the Devils while averaging just under 10 minutes a night.
Size is the selling point now, not scoring. The 34-year-old stands 6-foot-6, has 821 NHL games on his resume and two 20-goal seasons behind him, though his last real offensive year was a 45-point run with Arizona in 2023-24. He was penciled in as the fourth-line center.
Sheldon Keefe has plenty of ways to patch the hole. Amadeus Lombardi skated between Cody Glass and Connor Brown in the first group Thursday, which is a real look at the bottom six rather than a throwaway pairing. Check out the Day 1 lines:
Jesper Boqvist, Evan Rodrigues and Dawson Mercer are all options down the middle too. Luke Evangelista, fresh off his five-year extension, opened camp on Nico Hischier’s wing alongside Timo Meier in the second group:
There was a second name on the injury report. Defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic will be a limited participant at camp as he rehabs a minor off-season procedure on his right knee, and general manager Sunny Mehta was asked whether he would be ready for opening night.
“Honestly, you know as much as me in terms of, I think it’s pretty much day by day. Yeah, he had a minor procedure in the off-season, and he just wasn’t feeling good enough to go in with the first or second group, as I understand it. But he’s skating. We’re optimistic. We’ll take it day by day. We’ll see.”
Here’s Mehta and Keefe with the media after Day 1:
Unrestricted free agency is waiting for Bjugstad next summer. The four-month end of that recovery window gets him back with enough runway to play himself into a contract. The six-month end does not.
