Vrbata suffered the injury on his second shift of the game when Hawks forward Andrew Shaw lined him up along the boards while the Coyotes forward was pinching in below the blue line.

"He kind of went to pinch the puck in and I kind of just finished my check on him and he went into the boards awkwardly," said Shaw, who thought Vrbata might have injured his shoulder on the play.

Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, however was not getting into specific about the injury.

"What are we going to call it? Upper-body," said Tippett, who couldn't say when he expected Vrbata to return.

"[He's] day-to-day," Tippett said. "He was in [Friday] morning, got a work out [Friday] morning and we'll see where he's at Saturday morning [before Game 2]."

The Coyotes struggled in the first period and fought to find their rhythm without Vrbata, who scored 35 goals during the regular season.

Mikkel Boedker played in place of Vrbata on the Coyotes top line with center Martin Hanzal and left winger Ray Whitney, but Tippett wasn't tipping his hand about what combinations the Hawks could see in Game 2.

"We've done some work here this morning, we'll continue to monitor what we think works for us," Tippett said. "The combinations that might fall into place for us as you're looking at different match ups, different scenarios that try to get your rhythm in the game. There's enough we can grab onto but I'm not sure where our lineup's going to be [Saturday] yet."