Rossi shares surprising injury update that plagued his entire season with Vancouver Canucks
Marco Rossi’s tenure with the Vancouver Canucks didn’t start with a bang.
The Austrian centre struggled in the early going with the Canucks, and we learned after the fact that it was because he wasn’t fully healthy.
However, as the season progressed, Rossi improved.
Down the stretch, he was the most impactful Canucks forward on most nights. Once he returned following the Olympic break, Rossi had 20 points in his final 25 games. That was second on the Canucks over that stretch, second only to Brock Boeser.
And, a big reason why Boeser’s offence ticked up was that he skated alongside Rossi.
Marco Rossi and Brock Boeser developed some chemistry with the Canucks (Bob Frid/Imagn Images)
The 24-year-old’s promising finish to the season is even more impressive when you consider he still wasn’t healthy, something he revealed last week as the Canucks closed their campaign.
“It’s still not 100 per cent,” Rossi said last week when speaking with Sportsnet 650’s Satiar Shah and Bik Nizzar.
“I broke my foot in October and then played with a broken foot for 10 games, for 15 games,” he said.
The fact that Rossi said he broke his foot in October is telling, because he continued playing for the Minnesota Wild up until Nov. 11.
Once he was traded to the Canucks on Dec. 12, Rossi played eight uninspiring games before going on an injury hiatus until after the Olympics.
However, he also revealed that he broke his foot a second time.
“It’s been a really hard season for me,” Rossi said. “And then, getting treated, I broke my foot again at the same spot.”
“It’s been a lot of ups and downs, and it’s hard to come back like 200 per cent. But overall, the last couple of games, I felt better.”
The dire nature of Rossi’s injury was revealed by head coach Adam Foote back in February before the Canucks returned to game action.
“The foot just got to a spot where it could, if he kept going, it could have been career-ending if he might have shattered it or things like that,” Foote said.
Those ramifications for Rossi should have sounded alarm bells for the Canucks, not just from a health perspective, but because he was a key piece of the Quinn Hughes trade. It does make you wonder if he should have been playing at all down the stretch.
While Rossi expressed a desire to play for Austria at the World Championship next month, he told an Austrian sports outlet that he’s skipping the tournament to focus on his recovery.