Merzlikins suffered an upper-body injury at practice and was designated for injured reserve Thursday.
Based on the injured reserve timeline, Merzlikins won't be available for the club's next three outings. The netminder likely would have started at least one of those three contests as coach John Tortorella has been splitting games between Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo to start the year. Without Merzlikins, the team promoted Matiss Kivlenieks to the active roster and could utilize him in an upcoming back-to-back with Carolina on Sunday and Monday.