Ducks forward Trevor Zegras underwent surgery today to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. He’s estimated to return to the lineup in six weeks.
Zegras has already missed three games with the injury, which he sustained on Dec. 4 against the Golden Knights. The 23-year-old fell awkwardly following a faceoff in the defensive zone, collapsing on his leg while skating backward away from the dot. He did not return to the game and landed on injured reserve shortly thereafter.
Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported Tuesday that Zegras was seeking a second opinion on how to move forward from the then-undisclosed lower-body issue but evidently quickly decided on surgery. As such, he’ll likely miss a tad more than if he opted to try and rehabilitate the tear without a surgical procedure, but carries far less risk for re-injury. The team anticipates his knee will return to full strength when he’s back in the lineup shortly before the season pauses for the 4 Nations Face-Off, Eric Stephens of The Athletic relays.
Zegras will now miss significant time for the second season in a row with a lower-body issue, even if it’s not as long of an absence as initially feared. The 2019 ninth-overall pick missed 20 games in the early going last year with an undisclosed LBI before undergoing ankle surgery in January that cost him another 31 contests.
Those injuries largely offered an explanation for Zegras’ poor production last season, even when he was in the lineup. His 15 points in 31 games worked out to a 40-point pace over a full season, a stark downturn from the career-best 23 goals and 65 points he’d put up the year before. It’s been more of the same in 2024-25, managing just 10 points in 24 games before landing on the shelf. He’s averaging 16:57 per game as he’s bounced around the top nine, the lowest since his rookie season, and he’s also logged a career-worst 45.5 CF% at even strength.
Zegras is the second Ducks forward to undergo meniscus surgery in the first few months of the campaign, joining fellow top-nine piece Robby Fabbri on IR. While neither had been particularly productive in the early going – Fabbri had only two goals in 14 games before getting hurt – it’s still not an easy thing to swallow for a Ducks team scoring 2.37 goals per game, second-worst in the league.
A six-week return timeline puts Zegras back in the lineup on Jan. 23 against the Penguins, meaning he’s slated to likely miss another 20 games while recovering. The New York native is in the second season of a three-year, $17.25MM deal.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Zegras is easily replaceable, Third line center at best.
You’re so tiresome. Ducks fans don’t like you. Fans of other teams use you to laugh at our fan base. Keep your opinions to yourself, clown.
Relax Mr. Duck, You aren’t in the lineup!LMAO!
He looked like a future Star! What happened to this kid?
Too much too soon on a bad team with no running mates. We’re seeing the effects of this phenomenon right now on Bedard, who is a generational prospect. You can’t just pair them with some quality/name veteran acquisitions and expect something to happen. They need to play with their peers when it comes to talent.
Celebrini is on a team with players who may be considered his peers, like Smith and Eklund…. any of these guys could lead the team in scoring five years from now… so I expect him to avoid this. Reminds me a lot of Toronto’s situation with Matthews, actually. Eklund is Nylander, Smith is Marner, and Celebrini is Matthews and before you know it, there’s 3 PPG+ players for a decade.
Zegras isn’t in an advantageous situation and isn’t talented enough (and currently healthy enough) to somewhat weather it like Bedard.
What happened was he was overhyped and was unlucky with injuries. I’m not calling him overhyped to hate him. People got caught up with how he was scoring goals instead of how many goals he was scoring. 30 boring goals are worth more than 20 exciting ones. I think it raised expectations too much for a young guy on a bad team. His potential is a decent 2nd line center, good third line center which isn’t bad.