Dave Bolland is going into surgery late tonight after taking a skate to the leg while receiving a hit from Zack Kassian in Saturday night’s 4-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. The injury has been described as a deep cut with a partial tendon tear similar to Erik Karlsson’s injury. The exact timeline on this injury can be tough to approximate, but it’s going to be months and dozens of games.
Bolland had six goals and ten points in 15 games while taking on tough assignments for Randy Carlyle. This is a big blow for the Leafs‘ prospects this season, especially in the month of November, with Tyler Bozak already gone for the next few weeks and not a whole lot of options on the depth chart at center.
Dave Nonis, Randy Carlyle and co. will have nearly a week off of games to try to pool their thoughts and figure out how to patch up the situation down the middle. Bozak has been placed on long term injury reserve and cannot return until November 21st at the earliest. As of tonight, the Leafs‘ center depth becomes Nazem Kadri – Jay McClement – Trevor Smith – Guy Off the Street (or something).
James van Riemsdyk could be a desperation option as a first line center, as the idea was flirted with last training camp when JvR first arrived. Nonis must also be hitting the phones looking for a decent depth center he could trade for. We’ll know more in the coming days.
Bummer.
Here’s the incident. Dave Nonis said after the game he doesn’t believe there was any intent on Kassian’s part.
