{"id":319212,"date":"2025-11-30T20:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/319212\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T20:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:17:10","slug":"injury-notes-pesce-jenner-cooley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/319212\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury Notes: Pesce, Jenner, Cooley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, Ryan Novozinsky of njdotcom asked Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe<\/a> for an update on defenseman Brett Pesce<\/a>. As shared by Novozinsky<\/a>, while the key defenseman is progressing, he is still not close to a return, and remains considered week-to-week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The blueliner has now been absent for over a month after blocking a shot against the Avalanche and leaving mid-game. The initial thought was at least one month, so the update is not great, but it appears the veteran is on the right track for a return by January.\u00a0While Pesce never jumps out on the stat sheet, anyone remotely familiar with his game knows his importance as a top shutdown defender. Prior to going down, he and Luke Hughes<\/a> were a formidable pair, complementing each other\u2019s games perfectly. <\/p>\n

Impressively, New Jersey has battled through the adversity of losing Pesce, along with Jack Hughes<\/a> and others, remaining atop the Metropolitan, especially thanks to a 9-1-1 home record. 21-year-old Simon Nemec<\/a> has stepped up of late, being trusted with high minutes from Keefe, and starting to break through from his second-overall selection billing. However, Pesce\u2019s absence is a major hole, and if the Devils are to hold off the Hurricanes along with the many other formidable teams in the division, they will need their steady leader back, placing their elite young defenders Hughes and Nemec back into more favorable roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elsewhere across the league:<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets Head Coach Dean Evason <\/a>told Jeff Svoboda<\/a>, Columbus\u2019 team reporter, that Boone Jenner<\/a> is \u201cclose\u201d to returning, but likely not tomorrow against the Devils. The captain practiced today but is being phased back gradually. Jenner landed on IR two weeks ago<\/a> with an upper-body-injury, and it was thought to be longer term, so a return by early December is favorable. The 32-year-old career long Jacket has 10 points in 16 games, and while a Monday return seems out of the cards, Jenner could return on Thursday as Columbus hosts Detroit.\u00a0
\nInsider Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff confirmed that<\/a> Utah forward Logan Cooley<\/a> appears to have \u201cdodged a bullet\u201d, with an initial finding of a quad contusion. Although further testing will be done, it seems to confirm last night\u2019s sentiment<\/a> that\u00a0a serious injury was avoided. Cooley\u2019s knee-on-knee collision with Alexei Toropchenko<\/a> immediately caught the concern of the league, as he had to be helped off the ice, earning Toropchenko a match penalty. In an update<\/a> from Matthew DeFranks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Toropchenko will not face supplemental discipline for the hit. Thankfully it appears the dynamic young star Cooley, with 23 points in 26 games, will not be sidelined for long.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last night, Ryan Novozinsky of njdotcom asked Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe for an update on defenseman Brett…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,163430,179966,3936,3899,134886,7519,575,85,7528],"class_list":{"0":"post-319212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boone-jenner","11":"tag-brett-pesce","12":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","13":"tag-injury","14":"tag-logan-cooley","15":"tag-new-jersey-devils","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-utah-mammoth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}