The Las Vegas Golden Knights appear to have lost one of their own for what will be the remainder of the 2018 - 2019 campaign and perhaps even more beyond that.
A report from David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review Journal has conformed that veteran Golden Knights' forward Erik Haula underwhent a surgical procedure to repair damage done he suffered in his right knee. The update comes over a month after Haula initially suffered the injury and Schoen was able to get comment from Golden Knight's general manager George McPhee regarding the news.
“He did have surgery,” McPhee said as per Schoen's report.
When you consider the fact that Haula was injured all the way back on the 6th of November, when he was on the receiving end of a solid body check from Toronto Maple Leafs veteran Patrick Marleau, this update seemingly comes very late. That being said though it seems that there is a rather specific nature to Haula's injury and that may explain both why the update was so late in coming out and why Haula's recovery time still seems entirely uncertain weeks after he initially went down.
“It’s a unique injury,” admitted McPhee.
It wasn’t an ACL, as some people reported. It’s not an ACL,” McPhee said. “It’s just an atypical injury for hockey.”
That is obviously not what you want to hear if you're a fan of the Golden Knights and honestly you have to feel bad for Haula who appeared to be off to a great start this season with 2 goals and 5 assists for 7 points in his first 15 games. The really unfortunate part of this update however is the revelation that even now, weeks after the injury was suffered, it's very clear that the Golden Knights still have no idea how long this unique injury may keep Haula out for.
When pressed on the question of a possible return for Haula to the line up McPhee would not commit to the regular season or even the playoffs, admitting that his player was still months away from a possible return.
“It’s really hard to know,” McPhee said. “It’s going to be some months, but we don’t know because it’s just such a different injury than any of us have seen before.”
Definitely a tough break for the Golden Knights and for Haula himself.
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