Photo credit: Vitaly Gubin/HC Traktor

Yesterday we had an alarming report out of Chelyabinsk, where it appeared that Washington Capitals prospect Evgeny Kuznetsov injured his shoulder for the umpteenth time.

Traktor Chelyabinsk’s head coach Valery Belousov wasn’t very encouraging after the game, saying that Zhenya “hurt his shoulder a little.” Today, however, the news out of Chelyabinsk is a bit more reassuring, as reported by Yuriy Golyshak of Sport-Express and translated below.

Traktor’s GM Vladimir Krechin denied the rumors regarding the injury suffered by the leader of the team and Olympic candidate for Team Russia Evgeny Kuznetsov.  According to the information received yesterday from Chelyabinsk, during Traktor’s home game against Medveščak the 21-year-old forward injured the very same shoulder that already has been operated on twice. During the post-game press conference Traktor’s head coach said that the reason he only had 4 minutes of ice time was his problematic shoulder. Such injury could cause a long term absence for the player.

“No need to worry,” said Traktor’s GM Vladimir Krechin exclusively to Sport-Express. “Evgeny is all right. It turned out that the injury is not to his problematic shoulder, but rather to the trapezius muscle. And even that is almost healed already. I think Kuznetsov will not miss even a single game. So don’t worry, he is fine.”

So there you have it. It’s not his shoulder and, whatever it is, it’s apparently all good. Must be the magical healing waters of Lake Karachay!