Canucks’ Quinn Hughes says teammate Tanner Pearson’s injury “wasn’t handled properly”

There’s never a dull moment with this team.

Following the Vancouver Canucks’ 5-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, defenceman Quinn Hughes — who tallied two assists and a goal in his side’s losing effort — was asked how his teammates reacted to the news that Tanner Pearson’s season is over.

And Hughes’ answer is sure to lead to more questions.

“I feel bad for him. I mean, it wasn’t handled properly and you know, it’s not really a good situation he’s got there and hopefully he’s going to be alright,” Hughes said, according to Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston.

Pearson was injured in the Canucks’ matchup with the Montreal Canadiens on November 9th, and had surgery on his hand the next day, with an original timeline of 4-6 weeks for recovery.

Pearson was recently hitting the ice and appeared to be gearing up for a return before hitting a setback that required him to get another 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. The announcement came Thursday morning from general manager Patrik Allvin via the club’s Twitter account. Three hours after the original tweet, a follow-up tweet was sent out that added the information that Pearson’s surgery yesterday was his second procedure since the original surgery in November.

So essentially, it appears that Pearson has gone through three procedures in the span of three months to heal his broken hand.

According to Rick Dhaliwal, Tanner Pearson’s agent Joe Resnick said they would have no comment on the matter at this time. The Canucks said the same thing when CanucksArmy reached out to the organization for comment on the quote from Hughes.

More to come.