The Carolina Hurricanes have announced that forward Jesper Fast will miss the entirety of the 2024-25 season after undergoing neck surgery. Fast suffered the injury in Carolina’s final game of the regular season and missed out on the entirety of the postseason as a result. The injury capped off his season at 19 points in 73 games — the fewest that Fast has scored in a full season since his rookie year in 2014-15.
Fast will now miss a full year after a career of consistency. He’s never missed more than 16 games in a season since becoming a full-time pro, playing in 634 of a possible 712 games since the 2015-16 season. His career kicked off with the New York Rangers, which selected him in the sixth round of the 2010 NHL Draft. Fast moved to the AHL full-time three seasons later, quickly working his way into the NHL with reliable two-way play on the wings. That style hasn’t elicited much scoring with Fast boasting a career-high of just 33 points, but it’s been enough to earn him a concrete NHL role and even Selke Trophy votes in the 2015-16 and 2021-22 campaigns.
Fast brought those talents to Carolina with a free-agent contract in 2021 — moving on from a seven-year tenure with the Rangers. He’s since become a glue guy in Carolina’s bottom six, serving as an energy piece around budding roster pieces like Jack Drury and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. That would have been the role awaiting him again next season, but Carolina will now have to pivot — and maybe even turn toward top prospects to pick up the slack. The Hurricanes have Vasiliy Ponomarev, Bradly Nadeau, Jackson Blake and Gleb Trikozov all signed to entry-level contracts. Each of the quartet holds a claim to the NHL lineup, but will have to fend off the pressure of veteran fourth-liners Eric Robinson and Tyson Jost and other quick-rising prospects like Felix Unger Sorum and Justin Robidas.
