Tavares shares traumatic details of his injury on his poor family

John Tavares met with media members on Wednesday morning and shared some details on the traumatic nature of his injury. 

As you know, Tavares was taken off the ice on a stretcher after a collision early in the first-round playoff matchup with the Montreal Canadiens. It was a freak accident: Tavares bumped into Habs defenseman Ben Chariot, fell to the ice where he was defenseless and hit by forward Corey Perry’s knee. Trainers and doctors from both teams rushed to the ice and attended to the veteran forward before he was taken away. He gave a thumbs up as he was wheeled off the ice and transported to hospital.The game was halted for several minutes. He was thoroughly examined and assessed by a neurosurgical team at St. Michaels Hospital. He is now recovering, along with a knee injury suffered during the same sequence, and talked to reported on Wednesday as the players cleaned out the dressing room. 

Tavares, who feels fortunate, revealed that he has yet to watch the sequence of events. 

“Personally from the injury, I’m doing really well and continuing to progress. I feel very fortunate considering what I went through, the traumatic nature of the injury. I haven’t seen it myself, just seen a few images.”

He also stated that Perry reached out to him immediately after and knows how it was an accident, how Perry never intended to hurt him. 

“[Corey] Perry reached out to me immediately that night. From everyone I talked to, there was no intent or trying to be dirty or hurt me. From everyone I talked to, it was just an unfortunate set of circumstances. I’d like to think there was no intent.”

Tavares did mention how the incident was traumatic for his family, who saw the hit over and over. 

“I know how traumatic it was for my family, especially how many times they saw it and the attention that was on it. Even the looks on [people’s] faces made me realize that it was pretty significant. Maybe I will watch it [someday]”

“I remember the whole day, my first couple of shifts. And then parts of it [after], as I was on the ice and getting put on the stretcher and getting into the ambulance is when I really started to get a grasp of it.”

When it was time to discuss the Maple Leafs’ collapse and playoff elimination, the pain is still raw for the captain, who couldn’t be on the ice to help his teammates move on to the second round. 

“It’s really hard to put into context the disappointment, just the devastation of what this loss brings to the group and the challenges we have ahead of us. It’s been a tough go I think we all take significant responsibility.

“We feel like we’ve let our fan base down. I know how much each and every person cares and how bad we want to have success and we won’t stop trying to get better and finding our way through this.”

The Maple Leafs don’t need to tell us that, fans are indeed disappointed…