Andrei Svechnikov feeling good after ankle injury — and also very lucky
.JPG "Carolina Hurricanes’ Andrei Svechnikov is helped up after being injured against the Boston Bruins during third period NHL Eastern Conference Stanley Cup playoff game in Toronto on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020.")
If the Carolina Hurricanes were still playing, Andrei Svechnikov says he’d be playing, too. Now almost two weeks removed from the high-ankle sprain he suffered when Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara knocked him backward in front of the net, Svechnikov says he’s ready to go again. Or would be.
“I would say so, I would play, you know,” Svechnikov said Friday. “I feel almost 100 percent.”
It’s a little hard to believe given how bad the injury looked at the time, Svechnikov’s right ankle buckling grotesquely as Chara pushed him back over his own skates late in the Hurricanes’ Game 3 loss. Svechnikov grabbed at his right knee as he lay on the ice, and the Hurricanes expected the worst, a broken leg or torn ligaments, with a long rehab to follow.
It became clear almost immediately that Svechnikov had escaped disaster, which was confirmed by an MRI exam. Svechnikov never exited the NHL’s Toronto bubble, hoping to play again, but the Hurricanes dropped the next two games to lose to the Bruins in five. Unlike a year ago, when Svechnikov bounced back from a concussion suffered in the first round to play in the conference finals, there would be no second chance.
But that doesn’t mean the high-scoring Russian winger who scored 24 goals in 68 games in his sophomore season is not feeling fortunate.
“Yeah, It was pretty scary,” Svechnikov said. “I kind of saw that moment on the video and I was like, ‘No way.’ That’s hard. But I did an MRI there and everything shows fine. I think I got very lucky there.”
Svechnikov attempted, before his injury, to try his now-signature lacrosse move from behind the net against the Bruins, a move that worked twice to score goals during the regular season but was quickly snuffed out by alert defenseman Matt Carlo. That internet-breaking move was actually incorporated into the new NHL 21 video game, and Svechnikov said he bought a PlayStation so he could try the move virtually as well.
That may be the only time he tries it. Acknowledging that other teams have caught on, Svechnikov said he’s working on some new viral content for next season, whenever that is.
“It’s so hard to do right now because the (defensemen) know,” Svechnikov said. “I think I’ve got a couple more tricks. It’s going to be really hard to make them but I’m going to try to keep working on it. Maybe one day I show some other tricks.”
