Severe Knee Injury Ends Season For Canucks’ Bure; Surgery Scheduled Soon

The Vancouver Canucks will be without scoring star Pavel Bure for the rest of the NHL season due to a knee injury that requires surgery, the team said Saturday.

“Obviously devastating news to the organization,” coach Rick Ley told radio station CKNW. “It’s the type of injury you’d like to see no athlete sustain.

“It can be a career-threatening injury. But in Pavel’s case, with his youth and being one of the top conditioned athletes probably in the world … we’re expecting a complete recovery.”

Bure will be operated on soon to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.

He was injured Thursday in Chicago when cuffed to the ice by Steve Smith of the Blackhawks.

Smith grabbed Bure around the head in the first period and when Bure fell behind the Chicago net, he caught his skate at the base of the boards, hurting his knee.

Smith, playing his first game of the season, said he was trying to shield Bure from the puck during a Vancouver power play.

“He must have fallen awkwardly because I hardly hit him,” Smith told the Vancouver Province after the game.

Bure said Saturday he felt a slight twinge in his knee the previous shift when checked by Chicago’s Gary Suter, but decided to keep playing.

The Moscow-born Bure had a slow start to the regular season with 13 points in 15 games, including six goals.