Washington Capitals: Michal Kempny suffers big injury

The evening began with bad news for the Washington Capitals.

Just an hour before the draft, not even, a tweet from the Washington Capitals public relations department indicated that Michal Kempny suffered an injury while training and even though it was off the ice it left a severe impact.

The tweet read, “Washington Capitals defenseman Michal Kempny underwent a successful surgery to repair an Achilles tendon. Kempny sustained his injury while training in the Czech Republic. Based on the nature of this injury, Kempny is expected to miss 6-8 months.”

This is the second year in a row Michal Kempny suffered a long term injury. Last year he hurt his hamstring and was out from mid March to mid October.

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There was video of Kempny training with Jakub Vrana in the Czech Republic not too long ago. We don’t know when Kempny experienced the injury but it’s not good news for a defense that needs to improve next season.

The good news is that the injury will free the Capitals his $2.5 million dollar cap hit for the most part as the team can put him on long term injured reserve.

Like I pointed out earlier this was the second time Kempny suffered a long term injury. It came in a regular season game against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Caps missed him when it mattered the most. In the playoffs, the Carolina Hurricanes exposed the Capitals and they were missing Kempny’s impact on the top pair next to John Carlson.

“I just felt pop in my leg. I felt really big pain,” Kempny said to Brennin Weiswerda of Russian Machine Never Breaks.

Kempny missed the entirety of that playoff run and a little bit of the first part of the 2019-20 season. Kempny was brought on at the trade deadline in 2018 in a deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. A lot of people think his addition helped make the defense even better which helped lead them to that Stanley Cup.

Kempny scored three goals last season and added 15 assists for 18 points and was a +19 while averaging 18:38 on the ice. He moved around from the first pair to the bottom four after the team acquried Brenden Dillon at the trade deadline.

When the Caps won the Cup in 2018, he was playing top pair minutes with John Carlson. Kempny is a valuable part of this team and he will be greatly missed next season.