MILAN, Italy \u2014 Canada believes it will get its captain back in time for the games that matter most.<\/p>\n
Marie-Philip Poulin is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury she sustained Monday and had to sit in the Santagiulia Arena stands and watch her team get blown out 5-0 by Team USA in preliminary Olympic action Tuesday.<\/p>\n
But head coach Troy Ryan says he is “definitely optimistic” Poulin will return to the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot sure if she\u2019ll be back for the Finland game (Thursday), but that hasn\u2019t been ruled out or in,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cMedical just said they were very optimistic based on the last assessment they made, so we expect her back at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quarterfinal action begins Friday. The medal games take place on Feb. 19.<\/p>\n
Poulin was checked by Kristyna Kaltounkova midway through the opening period of Canada\u2019s 5-1 win over Czechia and skated off, favouring her right knee.<\/p>\n
She tried to return to the ice while Kaltounkova served an illegal-hit penalty but soon called it a night.<\/p>\n
Poulin, a five-time Olympian, already has three gold medals and one silver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we heard is that she\u2019s going to be assessed daily and that it’s a possibility for her to come back,\u201d goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope she puts all her time right now to recover, rest, get better \u2014 not only to compete with this team but just to be able to compete as an athlete. And then I know she\u2019s going to have an impact. Regardless of when she\u2019s going to come back, she\u2019s somebody that will always cheer us on and be the heart of this team. That won\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olympic rules permit Ryan to dress 13 forwards should he so choose.<\/p>\n
Would he consider dressing the injured Poulin simply to sit on the bench and help guide her teammates?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a possible scenario, because you don\u2019t have to sit anybody out to let her do that,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cWhat\u2019s best for her is probably not to be in gear and sitting down the entire time. While we\u2019re here, she can be getting treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, as a captain, if that’s something that she felt was necessary or would benefit her or her team, then it\u2019s something we would consider.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN, Italy \u2014 Canada believes it will get its captain back in time for the games that matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-467444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}