Ville Heinola Shelved Once Again With Ankle Injury

Winnipeg Jets defenceman Ville Heinola will miss significant time with another injury related to his ankle.

Having seen his 2023-24 Jets training camp cut short after sustaining a broken ankle in a preseason game last fall, Heinola vowed to get his name back in the mix for one of the final spots on Winnipeg's blueline the coming season.

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Well, training camp has rolled around and Heinola has made an appearance.

A brief one, albeit.

On Friday, head coach Scott Arniel provided an update on Heinola's situation - why he wasn't on the ice with the team at the formal training camp skate.

"Ville, it's not so good," Arniel said after the skate. "We got some bad news on him. His ankle, he's got an infection. This isn't day-to-day. We'll come back around this in maybe a week or so, maybe see where he's at. A little bit more serious than what we'd like."

The infection is near the site of the screw in the ankle that he had surgically repaired a year ago. It was discovered while reviewing bloodwork following his training camp medical exam.

The 23-year-old was selected 20th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. He has only skated in 35 career NHL games over the following four seasons - with injuries contributing much to the cause.

After losing Brenden Dillon and Nate Schmidt via free agency this offseason, Winnipeg was expecting to house Heinola as one of its bottom-pair defencemen this season.

With Josh Morrissey, Dylan DeMelo, Dylan Samberg and Neal Pionk holding down the Top-4 spots on the blueline, the final pair will likely be some combination of Colin Miller, Logan Stanley, Dylan Coghlan, Haydn Fleury and Heinola. But with his injury, the No. 7 spot will be up for grabs during Heinola's recovery.

After coming back from his broken ankle last year, Heinola put up 10 goals and 27 points in 41 AHL games for the Moose. He was not called into action in Winnipeg.