UPDATED: Canucks Boeser Out 3-4 Weeks Following Surgery

The Vancouver Canucks made the following announcement Monday morning: Brock Boeser underwent successful hand surgery. He will return in 3-4 weeks. Boeser hurt himself at practice on day three of Canucks Training Camp in Whistler, Saturday, September 24th.

Not the end of the world for the Canucks obviously, but not an auspicious start to the preseason.

Summer acquisition, speedy forward Ilya Mikheyev got hammered to the ice early in the 2nd-period at Rogers Arena by Flames forward Adam Ruzicka, left the ice in discomfort and didn’t return.

“I can’t tell you anything because I haven’t talked to the doctor yet,” Boudreau said postgame. “I’ll know more tomorrow.”

He knows. And Mikheyev knew something was wrong immediately if you view the lowlight on tape. He landed hard on his right arm and wrist. The Canucks can only hope it’s not something acute, like a break, but then again they’d know that by now as well.

The rest of us will find out shortly, the team practices again on Tuesday.

Games On!

Meanwhile, the Flames won both halves of the split squad matches, 3-2 in overtime in Vancouver and 4-0 at home in Calgary.

Calgary’s big addition on the wing this summer, Jonathan Huberdeau, opened the scoring in the game in Alberta in the second period. Cody Eakin, Blake Coleman and Brett Sutter also scored for the Flames. Brett, almost exclusively an American Leaguer over the course of his 15-year pro career that inciudes 60 NHL games, is the son of the team’s head coach Darryl Sutter.

– Huberdeau scored on a 5-on-3.

– Danila Klimovich had a stickhandling turnover at his own blueline that led to the Flames second goal.

– Canucks goalie Collin Delia should have had the third goal.

– Arshdeep Bains of the Canucks failed on a breakaway chance and had one other shot on goal.

The Canucks were outshot 31-19 in the match with the Flames going 3-for-7 on the power play. Vancouver went 0-for-5.

In the Rogers Arena affair there were some home team highlights. The Canucks came back from down 2-0 to force overtime. Vasily Podkolzin made a nice dipsy-doo move around Flames centre Kevin Rooney, cut strong to the net and worked the puck past goalie Dustin Wolf to cut the lead in half.

As the extra attacker on the ice, Conor Garland tied the game with a wrist shot while falling down in front of Wolf with 91-seconds remaining in regulation.

The Canucks lost shorthanded in OT on a Michael Stone goal with Podkolzin in the penalty box for tripping. Defenceman Stone is playing for the Flames on a professional try-out (PTO) offer, similar to that of defenceman Danny Dekeyser for the Canucks.

Dekeyser played 17:20 Sunday, had two shots on goal and blocked three shots. He played a total of exactly six minutes on the penalty kill.

“You never want to take more than two or three penalties in a game,” Boudreau said, “we were up to seven.”