Our worst fears have been confirmed. After Tuesday morning’s skate, it was confirmed by Jets head coach Paul Maurice that defenseman Josh Morrissey will be out through the month of March with an upper body injury with a possible return to the lineup set for sometime early April.

Morrissey was injured in the third period of Sunday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes after taking a seemingly innocent hit along the boards from Coyotes forward Vinnie Hinostroza.

While no real details were given, it’s easy to speculate given the time frame mentioned for how long Morrissey will be out and when to expect his return that there is a possible shoulder separation that too place during the hit.

The silver lining in all of this is that there is hope Morrissey will be re-joining the team in time for round one of the playoffs with maybe a game or two of regular season hockey to get him back into game shape. Until then, expect healthy doses of two of the newest Jets acquisitions on defense Nathan Beaulieu and Bogdan Kiselevich as well as hopefully some more serious playing time for Sami Niku as we roll through the month of March.

In 59 games with the Jets this season, Josh has six goals and 31 points playing mostly with Jacob Trouba on the Jets top pairing.