Columbus Blue Jackets center Sean Kuraly on injury scare: 'I’m lucky to be in good shape'
Sean Kuraly didn’t do a lot of moving around on Christmas, so his holiday wasn’t out of the ordinary in that way.
What was different was the fact he couldn’t move, spending the day on the couch while being attended to by family members after sustaining a painful internal injury last Saturday night at Nationwide Arena, when Kuraly left the Blue Jackets’ 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs near the end of the first period.
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After getting his stick caught in the end boards before a hit from Toronto’s Jake McCabe, Kuraly had the butt end of the stick jam of into his abdomen. He left the ice gasping for air, collapsed behind the bench and needed assistance getting to the medical room. Speaking at the Jackets’ morning skate Friday before they faced the Maple Leafs again without him, Kuraly said he’s grateful for the quick response to what was ultimately deemed an internal contusion.
“It was a bit of a scare, obviously, and then found out pretty quickly it wasn’t anything serious. But right off the bat, a bit of a scare.”#CBJ C Sean Kuraly on his abdominal injury from getting the butt end of his stick rammed into his upper chest last week vs #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/2lz4fGzWjQ
— Brian Hedger (@BrianHedger) December 29, 2023
“It was a bit of a scare, obviously, and then we found out pretty quickly it wasn’t anything serious,” Kuraly said. “But right off the bat, a bit of a scare. Luckily, I was in great care and all the precautions went perfectly smooth and I’m lucky to be in good shape.”
Kuraly is dealing with a high level of pain while the contusion heals. He'll miss his second game when the Jackets play Toronto and might miss the conclusion of a back-to-back set Saturday in Buffalo. He’s lucky it wasn't a more serious issue.
“I ran into the wall and got my butt end up in my ribs and my lung,” he said. “I watched the replay. I told the official ... I just said, ‘I think something’s wrong,’ and I think he was right behind me ready to help me to the bench. I was struggling to breathe. I wasn’t sure what it was going off the ice. It was just in there where you’ve got a lot of pretty important things going on.”
A trauma surgeon who works with the Blue Jackets was in attendance and performed Kuraly’s initial evaluation. He was checked for a possible heart injury, punctured lung, rib injury and spleen laceration. Those all checked out fine, so Kuraly was sent to nearby Grant Medical Center for a CT scan to check for internal bleeding. After passing that test, he was released without being admitted.
That’s what led to his painful day on the couch for Christmas with his family, who attended the game and made it to the arena’s event level to check on him with assistance from Johnny Gaudreau's wife, Meredith.
“That’s a big piece of this,” Kuraly said. “There was a lot of concern, so I appreciate all of that, but you don’t like to see people you love in distress, and that was unfortunately an unintended consequence of what happened. You just try to get back to them as quick as you can.”
Kuraly and team staffers helped inform his family that he was fine, but there was “a lot of concern” for the first few moments after he nearly passed out behind the bench. Even a few Maple Leafs players skated over after the game was paused with 18 seconds left in the first period. Confusion and concern became the predominant emotions inside the arena until the Blue Jackets issued statements about Kuraly’s condition during the first and second intermissions.
“It was a concern (to us) because you don’t really know what’s happening,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “It didn’t seem when he was going off the ice, from our perspective, that it was anything too serious, but you just never know quite what’s happened once he’s gotten off the ice ... and for the training staff to react the way they did, and you don’t know what’s happening, of course you’re concerned.”
Kuraly tried skating Wednesday before the Blue Jackets flew to New Jersey to play the Devils, but he hurt too much to play. His status remains “day-to-day,” and Kuraly is hopeful to return to action relatively soon.
“I’m just trying to get through,” he said. “I’m still in some discomfort and pain in my lung and (abdominal) area. It was a bit of a contusion, so I’m just trying to work through some of that and be able to move like I can.”
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As for the quick response to what happened that night, including his teammates getting a nearby linesman’s attention to stop the game and a member of the training staff throwing a white towel onto the ice, Kuraly was impressed after watching replays.
“It puts you at ease to know if something does go (seriously) wrong, it’d be run very smoothly,” he said. “I was under great care, and I was lucky to have that.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets' Sean Kuraly 'lucky to be in good shape'
