Shaw says he would’ve played in second round
The Medicine Hat Tigers fell two wins shy of returning star centre Mason Shaw to the ice.
Shaw got the green light from Minnesota Wild staff earlier this week and returned to Canada on Sunday in the hopes of returning to his Western Hockey League club after missing the entire regular season with a torn ACL, but the Brandon Wheat Kings had other plans, winning 4-3 in overtime to take the firstround series 4-2.
“It’s tough. I feel bad for the guys and it’s disappointing for myself as well,” said Shaw. “I’m cleared now and they sent me back, pending everything going well in the series I was going to play in Round 2. It’s just a tough break. It seems like we just got delivered with all the injuries we had to deal with.”
Although Sunday’s seasonending loss prevents Shaw from returning to the WHL until his overage season starts in September, there is a silver lining to the situation. The 97th overall Minnesota draft pick has been very involved with his big league club through the rehabilitation process and will be furthering that relationship by closing out the season with their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild.
“It was pretty much just a quick flight back home to turn around, but that’s OK. So I’m heading down to Iowa and we’ll see how things play out and kind of go from there,” said Shaw, who put up 27 goals and 67 assists with the Tigers last year before tearing his ACL during a prospects twournament game with the Wild in September. “I’m going to go down there and practice for a couple of days, and for the last three of four games they plan on getting me into some action.”
Shaw underwent his official evaluation in Minnesota last Monday with positive results, but had to remain south of the border in order to have a custom knee brace made, and then to get used to the new equipment on the ice.
“The brace took some time to get in with the custom fitting and then I had to get more skates with my brace in before I was cleared to jump into some action,” he said. “It’s quite a bit different playing with the brace. It restricts you more and it’s bulkier, so to jump right into a game situation, I’m not too sure it would have been fair.”
Tigers defenceman David Quenneville added it’s a bittersweet situation — as the team was one bounce away from forcing Game 7 on home ice, but now Shaw will get the chance to shine at a professional level.
“It’ll be fantastic. Mason is a premium player in our league. It’s obviously disappointing that he didn’t get to show that this year, but I think the fact that he’s going to have some trust put in and to go play in the American league, it’ll be awesome for Shawzy and get his confidence up,” said Quenneville. “Obviously we really wanted Mason back and to have him battling along with us. It’s sad to see, but everything happens for a reason.”