Photo by Lee Down under creative commons
Hard Check Injures Baertchi's Shoulder
Sven Baertschi sustained a shoulder injury in the second period of this past Friday's game against the predators. Baertschi was injured when he took a hard check directly to the shoulder. As you will read in my acromioclavicluar injury post, this is a classic mechanism for this type of injury. Some reports suggested that he sustained a shoulder dislocation, however that doesn't seem quite right based on the mechanism of injury. As a side note, I prefer not to use the term shoulder separation, as it is an overly dramatic term to describe this condition and the shoulder is not literally separated from the body. The proper term is acromioclavicular sprain or acromioclavicular separation. Based on the reports he will not need surgery, and depending upon the classification of his injury Baertschi could be out from one week up to four weeks Check out my more detailed post for Classification, Treatment and Return to Play.
Shoulder X-Ray Showing Severe AC Joint Injury
Most accurate diagnosis is made when comparing to the unaffected side however this appears to be a Type 3 Acromioclavicular Separation
Photo by @harlsta