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Matthew Tkachuk had a concussion (and other injury news)
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Photo credit: Sergei Belski/USA Today Sports
Ryan Pike
Aug 24, 2020, 17:45 EDTUpdated: Aug 24, 2020, 17:42 EDT
In his end-of-season media availability on Monday afternoon, Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving confirmed what had long been suspected: star forward Matthew Tkachuk suffered a concussion against the Dallas Stars.
Per Treliving, Tkachuk was working through the NHL’s concussion protocol after suffering the injury in Game 2 against Dallas. Presumably, he suffered the injury when he was sandwiched between Jamie Benn and Jamie Oleksiak in the third period of that game and his head bonked against Oleksiak’s. Tkachuk didn’t take warm-up in Games 3-6 and missed the last four games of the series. (It’s unclear if he was even skating, as interim coach Geoff Ward was cagey when directly asked about that during the series itself.)
Additionally, two prominent young Flames were also fairly tenderized by the playoffs.
Defender Rasmus Andersson broke his foot, reportedly in Game 2 of the Winnipeg series, while Sam Bennett had a torn tricep he was playing through (also from Game 2 of the Winnipeg series). Treliving explained that Milan Lucic taking most of the face-offs in the Dallas series was a consequence of the state of Bennett’s injury: Playoff Sam simply physically couldn’t take the face-offs, so Lucic stepped in.