EVERETT — If Landon Ferraro was a cat, he’d be well aware he used up one of his lives.
The Everett Silvertips captain dodged a major bullet when it turned out the knee injury he suffered Friday was nowhere near as serious as it originally appeared.
Ferraro went down midway through the third period of Friday’s 4-2 home victory over Calgary. Ferraro chased down a puck in the right corner, fired it goalward, then was hit awkwardly on his right knee by a Calgary player.
That was particularly troublesome for Ferraro considering an injured right knee is what hampered him last season.
“As soon as that happened I was thinking on the ice, ‘Here we go again,’” Ferraro said. “This wasn’t exactly how I wanted this year to go, either.
“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what happened,” Ferraro added. “I just know I turned and shot it on net, then my leg hit and I was down. I have no idea who did it, I don’t know what happened after, I was just in another world.”
Ferraro remained on the ice as he tried unsuccessfully to get himself to his feet. After being attended to by Tips athletic trainer Chris Walker, Ferraro had to be helped off the ice, putting no weight on his right leg.
Ferraro’s reaction suggested the type of injury that would keep Ferraro, Everett’s second-leading scorer, on the sidelines for a long time.
“I was pretty concerned because he did have the knee injury last year,” Everett coach Craig Hartsburg said. “But he was wearing a brace on it and that probably saved him from serious injury.”
Indeed, it was mere moments after being unable to put any weight on his leg that he began to recover.
“Right away it felt a lot like last year when I got hurt,” Ferraro said. “It started getting better pretty quick. As soon as I got back in the room I took the last three steps to the training table — those were the first three I made. It started to get better, that night I iced a lot and made sure I was moving so it didn’t get too stiff. It was just a weird situation where the doctor said that when something like that happens the muscles around it shut down.”
Defying all expectations, Ferraro was back in the lineup the following night at Spokane.
“I skated the morning before Spokane just to make sure, and there wasn’t one point during the game where I felt like I was hindered at all,” Ferraro said.
And Ferraro feels fortunate to have escaped what could have been a disaster, both for him and the Tips.
“The thing I was focusing on this year was staying healthy,” Ferraro said. “There’s only so much you can do to make sure you’re healthy: making sure you’re in the gym and staying strong and staying on top of things. I need to have a full year this year, I need to be in the lineup so I can help our team as much as I can.
“I guess I got lucky a bit and I can keep moving forward now.”
Slap shots
Tonight’s game will be Everett’s first without Hartsburg, who is taking a leave of absence to undergo heart surgery. Hartsburg will miss all three of this week’s games because of a preliminary procedure, then will return until the main surgery takes place in early November. Associate head coach Jay Varady will serve as head coach in Hartsburg’s absence. … Everett has four players unavailable for tonight’s game because of injury: center Clayton Cumiskey (concussion), wingers Campbell Elynuik (upper back) and Markus McCrea (concussion) and defenseman Alex Theriau (groin). Cumiskey, who’s been out since Oct. 1, has passed his baseline test and now can resume physical activity. … The injuries up front mean right wing Taylor Cote, who joined the team last week, is set to make his WHL debut tonight.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
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