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Demko, who is understood to be dealing with a minor issue with the popliteus muscle in the back of his left knee, has yet to take part in a full skate with his teammates this pre-season.
And that’s OK, says head coach Rick Tocchet.
“I heard he had a good day again today,” Tocchet said Wednesday afternoon, after running the players on his squad who weren’t skating that evening in Abbotsford against the Flames.
“We measure his good days. The thing with Demko, we’ve talked about no target dates, just days. And so far, it’s been (many) consecutive days. I don’t know how many, at least 10 or 12, where he’s had good days. So that’s a positive.”
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Demko spoke with reporters a week ago to explain how awkward his summer was: he’d injured his knee near the end of game 1 vs. Nashville in April, jamming his leg against the left post and immediately experiencing an awkward feeling.
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He didn’t play again in the playoffs, though he worked hard to rehabilitate his knee — they didn’t actually recognize the unusual injury at the time — and if the Canucks had advanced to the conference final, Demko would have been ready to start game 1.
But the Canucks were eliminated and so the off-season began.
After some downtime, Demko expected his summer would proceed as usual. And then he felt his knee tweak again. Alarmed, he and his doctors chose to shut him down for a few weeks to investigate the issue.
With him sitting out, the decision was made to have a surgical procedure on his knee for an apparently unrelated issue. The procedure was said to be minor in nature.
Demko said he and his doctors consulted with specialists around the world to determine the nature of his injury, which is very rare in isolation. The popliteus is most often damaged in relation to damage to an athlete’s anterior collateral ligament or posterior collateral ligament; the number of cases where the popliteus is injured in isolation is incredibly rare.
Medical literature has identified a handful of rugby and soccer players who have recovered from popliteus injuries, taking any time from three weeks to months.
Most have recovered using conservative, non-surgical methods. It would seem Demko is following that same path.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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