It is all TBD until it actually happens. I'm just saying there is the possibility the surgery was a huge success and still not allow for him to be a NHLer ever again.
Undoubtedly it is a setback, but the permanence of it is up on the air. The way this was described to me was that if he absolutely had to play tomorrow, they could find a way. Just that the importance of games now or even Dec/Jan just isn't high enough to put the extra stress on it. The Avs can't afford to activate him today anyway, so why go through that and risk the whole thing? On top of this, nobody thinks the knee is going to hold up to 100+ games a year. More like 50-60 and it'll have to be managed.
Grain of salt this, but the timeline as I was told was this. He was ramping up and skating heavily again. On a routine checkup, there was a significant amount more inflammation than expected. So it was decided to stop activities and give it a bit of rest. With the goal of checking in prior to US Thanksgiving (my take, but wasn't explicit this meant some skating prior). If that goes well the ramp will start again after Thanksgiving with a target of January. If it does not, they will punt until the new year with a target of returning after the 4 Nations.
