Capitals confirm the worst for 35 year old veteran T.J. Oshie

This just in, the Washington Capitals have announced that veteran forward T.J. Oshie will be out of the team's lineup indefinitely after suffering a lower body injury against the Nashville Predators this past weekend.

From Caps insider Samantha Pell of the Washington Post:

"Capitals’ T.J. Oshie is out indefinitely, per the team. Lower-body injury. Oshie suffered the injury in the first period in Nashville."

"Oshie is not with the Capitals in Carolina. He did not travel with the team after getting injured in Saturday’s game in Nashville."

- Samantha Pell

An absolutely brutal break for Oshie and for the Caps. 

The 35 year old Oshie has a solid five points in nine games so far this season, following a pretty disappointing 11 goal and 25 point campaign last year. He has been limited due to injury the past three seasons now and at 35 years of age, you have to have real concern for his playing future if he can't stay healthy. He hasn't hit the 20 goal plateau in a couple years and he hasn't hit the 50 point plateau since 2019... are we seeing the decline of his production in front of our very eyes? It certainly seems so...

As for the Caps, this is a HUGE blow. The team is also without veteran center Nicklas Backstrom for God knows how long and now they've got Oshie on the shelf too. That's a lot of offence for Evgeni Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin to fill on their own. With Backstrom and Oshie out though, the Caps get nearly $15 million in salary cap space to make a deal. If and when a big name, big money forward comes on the trade market, I suspect that Capitals GM Brian MacLellan will be kicking tires. I wonder if a player like Black Wheeler, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews or Josh Anderson would be a good fit in DC? Time will tell, but if I'm a Caps fan I'm pretty nervous out this team's roster this season. There's Ovechkin and Kuznetsov up front as your studs with Conor Sheary and Dylan Strome as depth contributors, but not much beyond that. Yeesh...