Just as the Detroit Red Wings begin to prepare for life without the Euro Twins in tonight’s draft, one of its aging veterans underwent ankle surgery today.
The surgery on Pavel Datsyuk was announced by Ken Holland, who went on to say it was performed in Charlotte. He returned from vacationing in Russia last week. His surgery was to repair ruptured tendons in his ankle. He suffered the injury while blocking a shot late in the season and played through it in the playoffs, where they lost to Tampa Bay in seven games.
The recovery timeline is projected to be four to six weeks, meaning he should have enough time (barring any major setbacks) to be ready for training camp.
Bill Roose mentioned in a tweet that Datsyuk used the same surgeon as Detroit Tigers player Miguel Cabrera.
Datsyuk is no spring chicken, as he is 36 years old. Due to various injuries the last two seasons, he’s played some of the fewest games in his career where a full 82-game season was played. After missing only six regular season games between 2007-2010, he played 45 games in 2013-14 and 63 games this past season. Things could be looking up for him as he did score 26 goals in 2014-15. He hadn’t scored that many since scoring 23 in 2010-11.
Another thing to note is that Datsyuk has played 152 playoff games in his career, nearly two extra seasons of wear and tear on his body.
