The Calgary Flames lost a hockey game on Thursday night, as they were out-scored by the Dallas Stars by a 5-2 margin. But in the third period, they also lost forward Connor Zary to an apparent lower body injury.

The sequence unfolded in the Flames zone 7:10 into the third period. On the play, the Flames were attempting to move the puck up the side boards in an effort to break the puck out of the zone. Stars forward Mikko Rantanen was attempting to intercept the puck as it was moving along the boards and he lost his footing.

Zary, who was standing facing the boards in an effort to keep the puck moving up ice, had Rantanen slide into him from the left side, folding Zary backwards awkwardly with his left leg – the point of contact on the sequence – trapped underneath both him and Rantanen.

There are video clips and GIFs available if you’re interested to see them, but they’re not particularly fun to watch.

Zary lay on the ice clutching his left knee until the play was whistled down. He had to be helped off the ice and did not return to the game.

Zary has 13 goals and 13 assists for 26 points in 53 games for the Flames this season. He was the Flames’ first-round selection, 24th overall, in the 2020 NHL Draft.

Zary previously suffered an injury to his left knee back on Jan. 7 against Anaheim. On that sequence, early in the second period he attempted to cut around Ducks defender Drew Helleson and they ended up colliding awkwardly, knee on knee. Following that injury, Zary missed 15 games as he rehabbed his knee – thankfully in that case, given the ugliness of the collision, his injury did not require surgery.

Flames head coach Ryan Huska had no update on Zary’s status following Thursday’s game when speaking with the media. He noted, given what Zary had already gone through with his previously injury and rehabilitation, how difficult the injury was to witness.

“It’s hard to watch because you don’t ever want to see a player go through that,” said Huska. “You see how hard they work to come back with their rehab and try to put themselves in a position to come back. So our hope now is that the work that he’s done has strengthened his his knee up enough so the injury isn’t serious. So we won’t know more until later on as to what it’s actually going to look like. But we’re hopeful, I will say.”

Friday is a scheduled travel day for the Flames as they head to Edmonton to visit the Oilers on Saturday evening. They’re currently carrying two healthy extra forwards – Dryden Hunt and Yegor Sharangovich were the scratched forwards on Thursday night against Dallas.

We’ll have more updates on Zary’s status as they become available.