Kraken’s Jaden Schwartz will be out for six weeks due to an upper body injury

Forward Jaden Schwartz of the Seattle Kraken will likely miss six weeks due to an undisclosed upper body injury he suffered in Tuesday night’s 4-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, the team said on Friday.

With eight goals this season, Schwartz is second on the team in scoring. Out of those, five have occurred during Seattle’s power play.

For a Kraken team that is still having trouble winning games just over 25% of the way into the season, it’s a significant loss. Due to a lower body injury, Brandon Tanev has missed the last two games for Seattle, and André Burakovsky has been out since mid-October due to an upper body injury of his own.

Tanev might soon make a comeback to the Kraken lineup, but Burakovsky, who is skating with the team but is wearing a non-contact jersey, is still not prepared to play again.

Schwartz appeared to be unaffected by anything in any of his final three appearances against Chicago. At the conclusion of his final shift early in the third period, he did make a play that might have resulted in the injury, playing the puck in front of the Seattle bench. He used his skate to stop the puck and made a pass, but as he retreated to the bench, he seemed to favor his left side right away.

To help offset Schwartz’s loss, the Kraken called up forward Max McCormick from the AHL Coachella Valley. McCormick leads Coachella Valley in scoring with 17 points from 16 games for the Firebirds, including eight goals and nine assists. In ten games for Seattle during the 2021–2022 season, McCormick did not record any points. He has appeared in 71 games for the Ottawa Senators, Carolina Hurricanes, and Kraken, recording six goals and four assists in his NHL career.

After making appearances in Seattle’s last two games, Andrew Poturalski was optioned back to Coachella Valley.