On Saturday, a New York Rangers spokesperson announced that Henrik Lundqvist suffered and played through an Isolated Grade 1 MCL sprain and will not skate until August.
The injury took place during the World Championship tournament where Lundqvist and the Sweden National Team won gold.
“He suffered an isolated MCL sprain that he was able to play through in the championship game,” a Rangers spokesperson told Newsday. “We don’t expect any disruption with his summer preparation/training and also expect no issues going forward.”
The afternoon before the gold-medal game, Lundqvist was unsure if he would be able to play. Lundqvist received an injection in his knee.
“It was okay, only for one game,” Lundqvist told Expressen as translated by Magnus Cadelin. “It would’ve been difficult without the injection.”
Lundqvist said he felt okay for the first half of the game, but that as the game went on, the injection wore off and his knee started hurting again.
“I was just happy to be able to play at all,” Lundqvist said. “I knew I wasn’t doing anything that could make things worse. It was all about handling the pain. We tested things the day before and I felt that we could make things good enough to play.”
Lundqvist had a 1.31 goals against average and .945 save percentage during the five games he played at the tournament. During the 2-1 win against Canada in the gold-medal game, Lundqvist stopped 42 shots plus an additional four in the shootout.
“We knew Hank would play,” teammate Nicklas Backstrom said to the Expressen about Lundqvists play in the final game. “He’s got such a winner mentality. When we needed him, he brought those black eyes and saved all four shots. It was magic.”
It is unclear when exactly the injury happened, but it was not caused by William Nylander’s giant celebratory tackle. Though that certainly did not help.
Translations by Magnus Cadelin.
Headline photo via @iandmclaren
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