Michal Rozsival won’t play for Blackhawks tonight

The Chicago Blackhawks can’t seem to get quite healthy. Tonight they’ll get top-line player Marian Hossa back from an injury, but they won’t have Michal Rozsival at their disposal. Head coach Joel Quenneville confirmed this morning that the defender has a lower-body injury and won’t be able to play against the Dallas Stars in Texas tonight.

Michal Rozsival will not play tonight per Coach Q. Lower body, day to day.

— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) March 11, 2016

The veteran blueliner left this morning’s skate early, but Chris Hine of The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the injury isn’t considered serious. He had been skating on the team’s third pairing alongside Christian Ehrhoff lately, and he’s averaged just over 15 minutes of ice time per night according to ESPN.com.

Through 39 games this season, Rozsival has one goal and eight assists to go along with a plus-two rating. He’s also racked up a healthy amount of penalty minutes, logging 29 PIMs this season.

Originally drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1996, Rozsival has spent the last four seasons playing for the Blackhawks. All told he has appeared in 929 regular season games and has tallied 67 goals and 235 assists. The Vlasim, Czechoslovakia native is in his 14th year as a pro and the 37-year-old will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.

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At least Chicago is getting healthy up front. Jonathan Toews was shaken up in the team’s last game, but he will be able to play tonight. Hossa has missed a solid chunk of time recently as well, but he will be rejoining the team to create what should be a deadly top line. Rozsival has been in and out of the lineup throughout this season, so this is business as usual to some degree for Quenneville.

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