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Knee injury to sideline Isles’ John Tavares for rest of NHL season
One of the NHL owner arguments against Olympic participation is the risk of injury for their players while they're representing their country and not their team. We've already seen Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Kopecky, Mats Zuccarello and Aleksander Barkov see their time in Sochi cut short. On Wednesday, we learned that Team Canada and New York Islanders forward John Tavares would be joining that list. On Thursday, we learned even worse news for him.
According to Arthur Staple of Newsday, Tavares is done for the rest of this season after he suffered a knee injury on Wednesday during Canada's win over Latvia.
The source said Tavares may need surgery to repair a torn medial collateral ligament and a torn meniscus in his left knee, but that determination will be made when Tavares returns to Long Island from Sochi. He is staying with Canada through its final two games of the Olympics to attend the medal ceremony.
He should be ready for training camp in September.
The news was confirmed by the Islanders Thursday morning.
The Islanders' playoff hopes were already slim, sitting 12 points behind the final Eastern Conference wild card spot, but it's a crushing blow for a team who has watched Tavares developed into one of the NHL's elite.
Tavares is currently the team's leading scorer and third in the NHL in points with 66 after forming one of the league's top lines with Thomas Vanek and Kyle Okposo.
How soon until Charles Wang goes all Ed Snider now?
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