For the third time this season, Sean Avery is on Injured Reserve, this time with a broken bone in his right hand after previous stays on IR necessitated by a shoulder separation and a broken bone in his left hand. And though the Rangers are doing their best to downplay the severity of the situation, the winger’s first words to The Post yesterday morning were, “I’m done,” before amending his comments after a chat with a club official.
“I mean I’m done for the next couple of weeks,” Avery, who missed his 22nd game of the Rangers’ 43 in last night’s 5-3 Garden loss to the Lightning, said a few minutes later. “I’m hoping it will heal on its own by resting it, but if not, I don’t know, I guess then I’d have to consider surgery.
“It’s the same bone that was broken in the left hand.”
When Avery underwent surgery on his left hand on Nov. 29, he did not return until Dec. 23. But that operation also included a second procedure to correct damage in his left wrist. During that convalescence, Avery said he had no idea whether the second procedure had any effect at all on his recovery period.
Avery earlier in the season missed four weeks and 10 games with the left shoulder separation he sustained in Ottawa on Oct. 6. He has registered 12 points (2-10) in 21 games in the final year of his contract leading into free agency eligibility.
“It’s at a point now where it needs rest; it needs to settle down,” said Tom Renney, who allowed that surgery might be a possibility, though the coach said that, “it’s a possibility he more than we are contemplating.”
*
Fedor Tyutin lost several teeth when he took a Craig MacDonald high stick in the mouth at 3:39 of the third. He did not return to the game.