Breaking: NHL insider reveals details of injury to John Tavares.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are officially bringing forward John Tavares home from the International Ice Hockey Federation's World Championship.

Reports began to surface yesterday suggesting that Toronto Maple Leafs forward John Tavares had suffered some form of injury in preparation for the World Championship tournament, a tournament he was looking forward to playing in as part of Team Canada. The reports suggested that the injury would prevent Tavares from participating in the tournament and there were even some reports suggesting that Tavares would return to Toronto for further evaluation. 

“We are disappointed that John will not be able to participate, but after contacting the Leafs, we agreed it was best for him to return home for further evaluation,” said Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill as per the Toronto Sun. “We know John was excited about the opportunity to wear the Maple Leaf once again.”

Botterhill is of course representing Canada and not the Sabres at this tournament which explains why he was the man providing the updates this week, but now we have official confirmation regarding why Tavares was sent home. As it turns out this would appear to be a fairly significant injury to the Maple Leafs forward and, although it may be one that he could have attempted to play through, you just know the Maple Leafs wanted to make sure there was zero chance for him to make things even worse. 

According to a breaking news report from Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, he has been able to confirm that the injury to Tavares is an oblique strain, and one that will keep him out of action for the foreseeable future. Friedman reports that Tavares will need at least 4 weeks to fully recover from the injury he suffered with Team Canada, a timeline that will impact his offseason training but one that should have no bearing on the 2019 - 2020 National Hockey League regular season for the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

Initially there was some concern that the injury to Tavares had been considerably more severe than this oblique strain actually is, so if you are one of the Maple Leafs fans who were hoping for good news this should have you covered. This will unquestionably end Tavares summer though and it seems unlikely that we see him back out on the ice for any meaningful games until next season at this point.

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