The New York Riveters may have suffered a very significant injury in Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Beauts in Brooklyn. Goaltender Nana Fujimoto exited the game during the third period.
In the second period, an odd-man rush for the Beauts resulted in a crash into Fujimoto with Buffalo putting the puck in the net on the play. The goal was called off.
Fujimoto was slow to get up and looked to be shaking something off. At that point in the game, Fujimoto hadn’t allowed a goal. She wound up allowing two before exiting the game at 13:30 of the third period.
She was slow to get up and move side to side during the third with the Beauts swarming in the offensive zone.
During the break in action she was helped to the bench and could be seen talking to trainers and the Riveters assistant coach before moving onto the bench. After the game, a trainer and captain Ashley Johnston helped her across the ice and to the dressing room.
Entering the game in her place was Jenny Scrivens, who was seeing her first game action of the season. The team has dressed all three goaltenders when healthy, but Shenae Lundberg was out of the lineup with an injury herself.
Fujimoto played a huge role in the two games prior to Sunday’s loss. The first of those two games was the Riveters first win of the season and saw Fujimoto stopping 42 of 44 Pride shots en route to being named the NWHL player of the week.
The team did not offer an update immediately. We’ll update here if the team updates her status.
Goalie change.
Jenny Scrivens in for Nana Fujimoto.
3 saves while typing this tweet.
— Metropolitan Riveters (@Riveters) November 30, 2015