After suffering what looked like it could have been a significant injury against the Philadelphia Flyers in an awkward collision with Joel Farabee on Friday night, Vancouver Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers got back on the ice in no time at all.
Myers, 34, crumpled down to the ice in a heap after the hit and appeared to have injured his leg on Oct. 11. Trainers and Canucks teammates J.T. Miller and Derek Forbort were required to help aid the 6-foot-8 veteran defenseman to the locker room, and he was subsequently ruled out for the game against the Flyers very early in the second period. Myers had played for only 36 seconds up to that point.
However, the Canucks never called up a defenseman from the AHL Abbotsford Canucks to replace Myers, and the 34-year-old was later revealed to be traveling with the team on their current road trip.
Just a few days after the injury, Myers returned to practice with his teammates and looked to be moving around and skating laterally just fine and without any kind of restrictions.
As we came to find, Myers was actually perfectly fine, and, somewhat surprisingly, took his usual place in the lineup and re-joined the Canucks for Tuesday night's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That matchup did not exactly go according to plan, as Myers, Arturs Silovs, and the Canucks allowed four goals in a devastating 4-1 loss. Vancouver is now 0-1-2 on the season, even after Myers returned and played exactly 20 minutes on 28 shifts.
Myers was not at his best, though, taking an interference penalty late in the second period and taking a double-minor high-sticking penalty with just 35 seconds left as the Canucks tried and failed to come back from a 4-1 deficit.
Myers had a minus-2 plus-minus rating and finished fourth among Canucks skaters in total ice time in his return to the lineup on Tuesday.