Morning Skate Notes: Injury Updates on Fox, Edstrom, and Laba

The New York Rangers have one last game before kicking off the new year in Miami for the 2026 NHL Winter Classic. As they take to practice in Arlington, Va. to prepare for their outing with the Washington Capitals, we have afew injury updates.

Adam Fox, who has missed the entire month of December with an injury suffered against the Tampa Bay Lightning the weekend after Thanksgiving, could make his return to action tomorrow afternoon in in the nation's capital. Fox is officially listed as a game-time decision but his participation in practice indicates he is likely to play.

Fox took reps back on the top pair alongside his left-hand man in Vladislav Gavrikov and took reps quarterbacking the top power play unit. Here's how the rest of that unit looked.

With Fox potentially returning to action, it appears that Scott Morrow will be the odd man out. This could certainly indicate that he could be headed back to Hartford as early as this afternoon or tomorrow.

Morrow's absence on the second power play unit is further proof he could be headed back to Hartford once Fox is officially taken off LTIR.

As for the forwards, no line combinations were reported but Mike Sullivan did make mention of the status of Adam Edstrom. Although, it doesn't appear that there's much news in that regard. Edstrom has also been on LTIR for most of December.

Lastly, Noah Laba missed most of the first period last night after taking a slash to the hand from Alexander Nikishin. While he isn't expected to miss any additional time, he did require stitches on his pinky.

While we won't know until tomorrow, it's fair to assume that we can expect the same lineup in Washington that we saw in Carolina last night except with Adam Fox back in the picture of defense. The Rangers will look to wrap up 2025 on a high note in their third meeting with the Capitals this season. The season series is split 1-1 with the Rangers losing 1-0 early in the season and winning 7-3 just last week.