It was a disappointing World Championship on a couple of fronts for Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Sweden blew a 3-0 lead in the third period to Canada on Thursday before falling in overtime and to add to that frustration, he was also injured as the Canucks announced (Twitter link) that he suffered a foot fracture in the tournament.
The veteran blueliner had a fairly quiet first season in Vancouver after coming over in a trade back at the draft last summer. He picked up 29 points in 79 games, his lowest point per game average since his rookie year back in 2010-11. Regardless, Ekman-Larsson still played over 22 minutes a game, second on the team to only Quinn Hughes while also taking a regular turn on both the power play and penalty kill. He was similarly quiet at the Worlds, collecting just a pair of assists for Sweden in their six games while logging 19:20 per contest, third among their blueliners.
Fortunately for Ekman-Larsson and the Canucks, the recovery time for this injury is four to six weeks which means while his offseason training will be interrupted, he should be fully recovered by the time training camp rolls around in September. Vancouver will likely be icing a similar back end to the one they had this season so they’ll be counting on Ekman-Larsson to have a bounce-back season in 2022-23.
After all of the NHL scheduling weirdness In the last two plus years do to Covid I wonder why these players even bother to participate In meaningless exhibitions.
Representing your country is not a meaningless honour you clown.
Stupidity runs rampant here.
Yeah, gosh forbid players want to play in competitions…same thing people said about the Olympics. Players want it for a reason.
Canucks Management: “Is this injury LTIR eligible?”
Typical OEL, the gift that keeps on s***ing. Thanks Jimmy Benning.
Two memories…
1) Remember all the clowns who chime in every time someone makes a comment on a hockey rumors board with some variation of “what do you know, you aren’t an NHL GM”?
2) Remember when everyone but an NHL GM knew that trading for OEL was a horrible idea?
Is it just me, or have people been waiting for a bounce back season from OEL for it seems like alot of seasons now?
It’s not just you.
If players go to these tournaments and get hurt that causes to them miss time with their NHL teams they should forfeit their salary…I know representing their country is great but the NHL team owns u…plan and simple…