Canucks announce forward Tanner Pearson out for remainder of the season

Tanner Pearson won’t return to the Vancouver Canucks lineup this season.

Early Thursday morning, Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced that forward Tanner Pearson underwent a second hand surgery yesterday after a setback in his recovery, and will miss the remainder of the season as a result.

The 30-year-old has been sidelined since he broke his hand in a November 9th meeting with the Montreal Canadiens. The Canucks originally hoped that Pearson would be out 4-6 weeks, but clearly the recovery process hasn’t gone as planned. Pearson was recently hitting the ice and gearing up for a return before hitting a setback that required him to get a second surgery on Wednesday.

Following the Christmas break, head coach Bruce Boudreau said he wasn’t sure when Pearson would be back, but said there was a chance that he’d be able to join the team on their current road trip. Instead, Pearson is done for the year.

Through 14 games this season, Pearson tallied one goal and four assists while logging 21 penalty minutes. His plus-minus on the year was -9 at the time he went down with injury.

Pearson, who the Canucks acquired from the Jim Rutherford-led Pittsburgh Penguins at the 2019 trade deadline in exchange for Erik Gudbranson, has one year remaining on the three-year extension ex-Canucks GM Jim Benning signed him to. Pearson’s contract carries an annual cap hit of $3.25 million.