Blackhawks lose Seth Jones to injury, bench Taylor Hall against Canucks

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Blackhawks will be without both Seth Jones and Taylor Hall on Saturday against the Canucks, voluntarily in one case and not in the other.

Jones will be placed on injured reserve with a right foot injury he suffered during the Hawks’ loss Thursday against the Kraken, coach Luke Richardson said.

The team will know more about the severity and timeline of his injury when they return home Sunday. It probably happened when he blocked a shot by Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky early in the third period; he looked pained afterward but continued playing the rest of the game.

The veteran defenseman currently leads the league in ice time, averaging 25:43 per game, and ranks third on the Hawks with 10 points in 17 games. His absence will put far more pressure on Alec Martinez — who just returned from his own lengthy absence Thursday — as well as Alex Vlasic, Connor Murphy, Wyatt Kaiser, T.J. Brodie and rookie Nolan Allan to carry the load.

“That’s a lot of minutes, and he’s crucial in a lot of areas in our team,” Richardson said. “It has happened over the last couple years since I’ve been here [that] the guys step up. It’s an opportunity [for them] to have more minutes, and more important minutes.”

Meanwhile, Hall will be a healthy scratch, getting former Canucks forward Ilya Mikheyev — a scratch himself in the last two games — in the lineup for his so-called revenge game.

Richardson said the decision to bench Hall, who had gone four straight games without a point while skating on the second line, wasn’t because of any singular mistake Thursday but rather made to get him more practice time to work out issues in his game.

“We just want to get him a little bit more work, and it’s hard to do that in the games and not get too frustrated and chase it,” Richardson said. “So that’s our plan. Players never like to sit out, so he’s not happy sitting out, but hopefully this is a good step for him and it will help our team.

“Hopefully we can get a couple good up-and-down-the-ice days for him and [get him] feeling good with the puck and playing like Taylor Hall plays.”

This story will be updated.