Two Vancouver Canucks players suffer injuries in IIHF exhibition games
The Vancouver Canucks’ dreadful 2025-26 season may be over, but their bad luck hasn’t run out just yet.
Two Canucks players suffered injuries during IIHF exhibition games on Thursday.
The scariest of the two was suffered by defenceman Filip Hronek, who is representing Czechia. The 28-year-old defenceman endured what appeared to be an upper-body injury after taking several crosschecks from Finnish defenceman Mikael SeppÀlÀ.
The video: pic.twitter.com/ZCScNhGoLG https://t.co/ILCuyU0F1v
— Tyson Cole (@tyson_cole) May 1, 2026
After the game, Czechia head coach Radim Rulik said that the Canucks blueliner may be forced to miss some time.
“The coach was obviously pissed off at the opponent’s unnecessarily rough play,” Czech reporter Zdenek Janda wrote on X (translated to English with Google Translate). “There’s a question mark over Hronek. ‘I’m afraid it might be something more serious,’ the coach feared.”
On Friday morning, CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal confirmed with Czech GM JiĆĂ Ć lĂ©gr that Hronek was still being evaluated.
Just talked with JiĆĂ Ć lĂ©gr the GM of the Czech national hockey team, he says defenseman Filip Hronek was injured last night, he is seeing the doctor right now.
Sleger says it is to early to say if the injury is serious or not and they will know more later today.
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— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) May 1, 2026
The other Canuck who suffered an injury on Thursday was Nils Hoglander. The Swedish winger was hurt during a game versus Switzerland, as per hockeysverige.se’s Uffe Bodin.
Nils Höglander was also injured in Swedenâs game against Switzerland. đŹ
â Uffe Bodin (@UffeBodin) May 1, 2026
There has been no further update provided on Hoglander at this time. The 25-year-old exited the game after the first period and did not return.
Hronek and Hoglander are just two of seven Canucks players planning to suit up at the IIHF World Championship.
Brock Boeser will be representing the USA, while both Liam Ohgren and Linus Karlsson are competing alongside Hoglander for Sweden. Aatu Raty will be suiting up for Finland, while Abbotsford Canucks goaltender Jiri Patera is also playing for Czechia.
The IIHF World Championship tournament, which is being held in Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland, is set to get underway on May 15 and will continue through May 31. It remains to be seen whether Hronek and Hoglander will be able to compete.