It was a disappointing World Championship on a couple of fronts for Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Sweden blew a 3-0 lead in the third period to Canada on Thursday before falling in overtime and to add to that frustration, he was also injured as the Canucks announced (Twitter link) that he suffered a foot fracture in the tournament.
The veteran blueliner had a fairly quiet first season in Vancouver after coming over in a trade back at the draft last summer. He picked up 29 points in 79 games, his lowest point per game average since his rookie year back in 2010-11. Regardless, Ekman-Larsson still played over 22 minutes a game, second on the team to only Quinn Hughes while also taking a regular turn on both the power play and penalty kill. He was similarly quiet at the Worlds, collecting just a pair of assists for Sweden in their six games while logging 19:20 per contest, third among their blueliners.
Fortunately for Ekman-Larsson and the Canucks, the recovery time for this injury is four to six weeks which means while his offseason training will be interrupted, he should be fully recovered by the time training camp rolls around in September. Vancouver will likely be icing a similar back end to the one they had this season so they’ll be counting on Ekman-Larsson to have a bounce-back season in 2022-23.