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Cody Hodgson not available to Moose

Cody Hodgson was in on the Moose Calder Cup run last season, scoring six points in 11 playoff games.

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Cody Hodgson was in on the Moose Calder Cup run last season, scoring six points in 11 playoff games. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Junior star Cody Hodgson, the 2008 first-round pick of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, won’t be with the Manitoba Moose any time soon.

The 20-year-old centre flew to Vancouver late last week to be checked over by Canucks’ medical personnel and Moose coach Scott Arniel said today that Hodgson is not healthy enough to play in the AHL playoffs at this time.

Hodgson had a broken toe just before the Ontario junior playoffs began but complained late last week about a back injury that nobody had heard of until his playoffs were over.

"He went to Vancouver, they looked at his back and he’s still not 100 per cent and he won’t be coming here any time soon," Arniel said this morning.

The coach had previously said the Moose were expecting him to arrive on the weekend.

Hodgson missed more than half the season recovering from back trouble.

Saturday, he spoke to reporters between periods of the Vancouver-Calgary NHL game and danced away from questions about his health and reporting to the Moose.

Manitoba opens its first-round AHL playoff series with Hamilton on Thursday night in Hamilton.

In the meantime, the Moose did have defenceman Lawrence Nycholat on the ice again today at practice, a good sign for the team’s playoff hopes. Nycholat, a former first-team AHL all-star, missed the last night games of the regular season with back trouble. At present, he is the only veteran defenceman on the Moose roster.

History

Updated on Monday, April 12, 2010 at 4:12 PM CDT:
Adds status of Hodgson, quotes

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