Former Leaf responds to criticism over current team playing him through a torn ACL

The Vancouver Canucks have had a rocky season, not just with their lacklustre play on the ice, but also with the poorly managed front office, causing outrage with the way they handled the firing of Bruce Boudreau and the injuries to both Tanner Pearson and now Ilya Mikheyev.

First, the club had Pearson go through 3 procedures in a month for a broken hand suffered 2 months prior. This prompted the Canucks to start an internal investigation after one of their young stars (Quinn Hughes) spoke to the media about his displeasure with the entire situation.

On Saturday, Mikheyev was officially shut down by the organization after they announced that he would undergo a surgical procedure to repair a torn ACL, which he reportedly suffered during the preseason. This led to a ton of heat being put on the Canucks organization. Later on Saturday, Mikheyev spoke about the situation and revealed that he continued to play of his own accord and was not, in fact, forced to play through the injury by the team.





Even with Mikheyev going to bat for the organization, sometimes a manager, coach or medical team needs to protect the player from themselves. It was certainly ill-advised to play through a torn ACL and the team should have shut him down long before Saturday.