It’s impossible not to feel bad for young Masow Shaw here.
On Saturday night, the 24 year old Minnesota Wild centerman suffered what at first glance appears to be a nasty looking knee injury in the first period of a game between the Wild and the Las Vegas Golden Knights. There was no real contact on the play and instead it was Shaw himself who, via his own forward momentum, propelled himself awkwardly into the boards.
Shaw appeared to catch an edge and lose his balance as he was backchecking on a play, resulting in his knee twisting awkwardly as he went into the boards. Considering the fact that Shaw has already dealt with 3 serious ACL injuries throughout his young career, the concern regarding his knee was immediate.
Shaw was unable to put any weight down on his injured leg, and was practically carried off the ice by his teammates.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this incident was an angle from the Vegas feed that appears to indicate that Shaw is very aware of how bad things are. Shaw immediately hangs his head in resignation following the injury, already a bad sign, but if you watch closely he also nods towards the Wild bench at the end of this clip, as if to signal that he knows the situation is quite bad.
According to Wild insider Mike Russo, Shaw was unable to so much as walk down the runway, another bad sign.
Given Shaw’s injury history and the relatively close proximity of the Stanley Cup playoffs, you have to wonder if the Wild may have lost an important part of their bottom 6, perhaps even for the remainder of the season, at a very inopportune time.