Dr. Schulz explains weighs in Canadiens young star’s injury
Link to Article: Canadiens weekly notebook: Laine and Dach benchings, Guhle injury and Xhekaj’s emergence – The Athletic
The Guhle aftermath
After losing Emil Heineman when he was hit by a car crossing a street in Salt Lake City, the Canadiens had to deal with losing Kaiden Guhle when he sliced his own right leg with his own left skate.
One freak injury after another.
The Canadiens announced after Guhle left the game against the Winnipeg Jets last Tuesday that he would be out indefinitely with a lacerated quadriceps muscle. Whenever a team uses the word “indefinitely” it immediately triggers the worst possible reaction and creates a void of information that people immediately attempt to fill.
After the game last Thursday against the Minnesota Wild, Suzuki seemed to suggest not all hope is lost when it comes to at least a possible return this season for Guhle.
“Hopefully we can get Guhles back eventually, I don’t know when,” Suzuki said. “But guys have got to step up to fill his shoes.”
Suzuki would not have said that if he had been informed that Guhle’s season was over. And frankly, if the Canadiens knew his season was done, they would have announced it, because that’s how they generally operate.
Which leads us back to the indefinite timeline.
Now, it should be emphasized here that this doctor has not examined Guhle and has no idea of the details of his injury, but we still thought it would be worthwhile to consult with an actual medical professional on his injury. And so we reached out to Dr. Brian Schulz, an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles and a team physician for the Ducks.
Schulz saw the video of the injury, read the details the Canadiens provided and agreed to fill in a few blanks based on that information. Nothing more than that.
First off, Schulz was able to determine based on the video that Guhle missed any major arteries when his left skate cut his right leg just above the knee. The major arteries in that portion of the leg are behind the knee. And second of all, there was not enough blood to suggest an artery had been cut.
“I don’t think he got any major arteries, because when I looked at that video, I didn’t see any blood on the ice. And if you hit a big artery, it would have bled. So I think that’s less likely,” Schulz said. “Muscle’s going to bleed, but if he hit an artery, there would have been blood on the ice.”
The other reason we wanted to speak with Schulz is because if you Google “lacerated quadriceps muscle,” you see mention of a lacerated quadriceps tendon and a timeline that would mean Guhle’s season is over. Which, again, the way Suzuki was talking, does not appear to be something the Canadiens have determined yet.
“The quadriceps tendon and quadriceps muscle attach the big quad muscle to the patella, which is responsible for straightening out the leg,” Schulz said. “Lacerations can be very simple in so far as they can be really shallow, or it can be severe where it cuts through the entire muscle and the entire tendon. So not knowing the severity of it, it’s hard to know for sure, but if it cut through the tendon, usually that’s something where it can be fixed, but it usually takes a significant amount of time for that to heal. Usually, you’re talking about at least three months for healing and then probably another couple of months for rehab if it’s a clean cut in a tendon.
“Now, if it cut through part of the muscle, it makes it even more complex because it’s a lot easier to sew tendon tissue back to tendon tissue or tendon tissue down to bone than muscle tissue. It’s really hard to say. I think any cut to the muscle or tendon is a big injury, but it’s hard to kind of quantify it. If it just barely grazed it, he could be back playing relatively quickly. But if it cut through the entire thing, this could have ended his season.”
Still, even without all the information, there is a scenario that at least allows for a Guhle return this season.
“We know that soft tissue takes two-to-three months to heal, so if it’s a tiny cut and most of it’s intact, he doesn’t need to be completely healed to come back,” Schulz said. “But if it’s the entire tendon you’ve got to let that completely heal, or he’s going to break through it again.”
But, simply judging by the video, Schulz doesn’t necessarily feel a doomsday scenario is the likeliest one people should be assuming here.
“Tendon is a thicker tissue, so it’s easier to sew tendon to tendon. But if you’re in the centre of a muscle, the muscle fibers, it’s really hard to sew those back together,” he said. “Looking at where the skate hit him, there’s probably a bit of muscle, but it’s also in the area where the tendon is, so I would bet there’s plenty of stuff there to get back together to help him heal.”
Again, there is a lot of unknown here, and the season-ending scenario is the worst-case scenario. But this is an unusual injury, and thus, the vague timeline for a return is not all that surprising to Schulz.
“They might be a little lacking in giving information because they just don’t know,” he said. “This is not a typical injury. It’s not like an ACL tear where you know it will be six to nine months.”
Again, just to re-emphasize, Dr. Schulz has not examined Guhle. He has never seen him or met him. This is simply to provide a medical opinion on what happened based on the visual evidence.
