Scurko out for year

[Stay-Puft]

http://www.sportstricities.com/sportstc/hockey/americans/story/8459710p-8353554c.html

Knee surgery to end Scurko's WHL career
This story was published Saturday, December 2nd, 2006

By Annie Fowler, Herald staff writer

Ladislav Scurko's season is over.

The Tri-City Americans overage forward, who tried to play through a knee injury, has decided to end his season and have surgery.

"The MRI picture showed a complete tear of the ACL and an MCL strain," said Scurko, a native of Gelnica, Slovakia. "I love hockey and I want to play, but after three games last week, my knee swelled up more and more after each game and I couldn't sleep."

Tri-City general manager Bob Tory said Scurko is a big part of the Americans, but the team will have to move on.

"Injuries are a part of the game, not an excuse," Tory said. "That is not something I believe in. We are not the first team to deal with injuries. This is an opportunity for someone else to step up."

Scurko was injured Oct. 20 against Prince George at Toyota Center and missed 12 games before returning to play against Calgary, Vancouver and Everett last week.

Surgery has been scheduled for Dec. 13 and Scurko will remain in the Tri-Cities for rehabilitation.

"It was a tough decision for me," Scurko said of the surgery. "But I have to look forward to my future. I will try to be ready for next year."

Surgery means Scurko will spend another year away from home at Christmas. The 6-foot-1, 205-pound center, who also played two years for the Seattle Thunderbirds before being traded to the Americans on Sept. 10, hasn't been home for the holidays since he started playing in the Western Hockey League.

"With the surgery and Christmas two weeks later, there is no way I can go home," Scurko said.

With the surgery putting an end to Scurko's WHL career, Tory will have the option of taking him off the 50-man protected list, which will open roster spots for another 20-year-old and a European player, but Tory was not ready to discuss those options Friday night.

In 11 games this season, Scurko had four goals, six assists and 16 penalty minutes.

[HAF]

Butterfield is still available right? I think they seriously need to look at picking him back up. that would give us an overage d-man that looked as if he had adjusted to the new rules pretty well. With Butterfield back we could look at trading off Knudsen who hasnt adjusted at all and continues to get us in penalty trouble on a nightly basis. I doubt he has any real value, maybe a late pick or something but we would damn sure be in better shape than we are now.
That still leaves us short a Euro and forward, any ideas?

[Stay-Puft]

I was thinking the same thing about Butterfield, because we only have 6 healthy d-men right now. But on the down side, with Butterfield and Schmidt and Cornish getting healthy after Christmas break, that would leave us with 9 d-men and I don't see any trade value with Knudsen or Gillen (my 1st choice).

I would like to see them bring back Butterfield and bring up one of their young forwards, like Derickson, Gorman, Wutzke or Phanuef (if any will be could be here next year and are available from their teams). I would bring up some young talent that will be here next year and give them a chance to develop. They're not going to replace a player with Scurko's ability this year, but start looking toward the next year(s). But we would diffenitly need to cut a 19-yr old D-man, with the 16's and 17's outplaying them, in my opinion.

[Sabes]

Looks like the Ams added former SilverTip Zach Sim to help their blueline.

[Stay-Puft]

That's mainly because the blue line is down to 4. Schmidt and Cornish are out with leg injuries, Knudsen had his cheekbone broken in 3 places from the Vancouver game last week, and Valach is going to tryouts for his World Junior team. None are expected back until after Christmas break. But who knows what will happen after that.

I'm also curious to see who we get to back up Pickard while Price is at the Canadian tryout.