The Ottawa Senators left Washington with a 3-2 overtime loss Tuesday, but the result quickly took a back seat to the condition of Nick Cousins.
Late in the third period, Cousins was trying to collect the puck deep in his own zone when Capitals defenseman Jakob Chychrun stepped in with a heavy body check that sent him crashing into the glass. Cousins stayed down on the ice for a while before eventually being helped to the Senators’ dressing room.
No penalty was called on the play. The hit targeted Cousins’ chest, and Chychrun did not leave his feet.
After the game, Senators coach Travis Green didn’t sound optimistic about Cousins’ status.
“He’s not doing great,” Green said.
The 33-year-old Cousins has two goals and one assist for three points in 19 games this season. Last year, he finished with nine goals and 14 assists for 23 points in 81 games, then went scoreless with one assist in Ottawa’s first-round playoff loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
A third-round pick by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, the Belleville, Ontario native has played for six different teams over 13 NHL seasons. He’s long been known as a pesky bottom-six forward, and his career-high in points is 27, a mark he reached in the 2018-19 season with the Arizona Coyotes and again in the 2022-23 season with the Florida Panthers.
Cousins also won a Stanley Cup with Florida in the 2023-24 season.
The worry now is a possible concussion. Cousins doesn’t have an extensive history of head injuries, but he did miss 12 games with a concussion in the 2023-24 season.
He is in the first year of a two-year, $3.18 million contract with Ottawa.
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