Rolston said he has high right ankle sprain

Devils right wing Brian Rolston left tonight's 1-0 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers with what he said was a high right ankle sprain.

Roslton left the building on crutches with a boot on his his right foot. I tried to ask Rolston twice if he had an X-ray on the ankle and both times was cut off by the Devils' senior director of communications.

The Devils did not say how much time Rolston will miss, but it looks like there's no chance he'll play Saturday in Washington.

Rolston lost an edge as he was turning and slammed hard into the boards in the left corner of the Atlanta zone with 9:54 remaining in the game.

"I was going in on the forecheck, I lost an edge and just went into the boards funny," Rolston said. "I think I have a high ankle sprain at this point. I just went in funny. It was my ankle. My knee is fine and everything."

Rolston said he was relieved that it wasn't his knee.

"I wasn't sure," Rolston said. "I was trying to be safe more than anything, so we've had it all checked out and we'll just see how it comes around in the next couple of days."

Comments

[Scott Kocienda]

ankle or high ankle, TG?

[HBK27]

Whew...glad to hear that's all it is.

[Jersey]

Is there any timetable for his return?

[Al]

Hope it's not too serious, HELLO MR.VRANA. Enjoyed the "Marty Party," Andy was solid, but we need more goals. A win is a win.

[Mickey Mouse]

"I tried to ask Rolston twice if he had an X-ray on the ankle and both times was cut off by the Devils' senior director of communication."

Pretty pathetic, if you ask me. There's no reason they should have any issue with you asking a legitimate question about a player injury...

[Kelly]

TG... gotta dig deep into this one and see what grade of sprain it is. It could be several weeks to a few months depending on how bad this is. Obviously we won't find out for a little while until the pain/swelling subsides. I really love to see Rollie out there so it would help a lot if you can find out the info at some point.

[TG]

It's a high spain. I initially left out that important word. It's updated now.

[TG]

We got about two minutes to talk to Rolston total. There was no time to get into degrees. I couldn't even ask him if he had an X-ray.

[Pat D'Amico]

Now we get to see Vrana play at least.

[Dr. Jaffe]

It's not going to be MONTHS, Kelly, unless he needs surgery. 3-4 weeks for a syndesmotic ("high") ankle sprain.

[DH]

Maybe Zajac should be shifted to the first line. That should get Parise and Langs going.

[jules]

@TG: Appreciate the effort.

Hope Rolston will be alright. Good thing we have Vrana.

[Devilswede]

High ankle sprain? Now that injury sucks. Might not sound bad...but always keeps players out for months. Look for Rolston to miss 2-3 months. I hope not, but that's usually the case with high ankle sprains.

[jim b]

TG how long do you think Rolston will be out for?

[Pearl Jammed(RJ Arditti)]

wasn;t this the injury that crosby had last year? i think it was and he was out for months. this could be very bad for us.

is anyone else as suprised as i am that we are 3-1 this season despite only scoring 6 goals total for the season? this is going to get ugly quickly if we think were gonna win enough 1-0 and 2-1 games to make some noise in the playoffs. Something has GOT to give

[WJ]

PJ, what you're saying is correct, however when I've been watching the Devils games this year and comparing them to last year, we just don't have the final finish in the offensive zone, but the team has been very dominant in putting shots on net and applying pressure in the offensive zone. There is that little difference between the 1-0 wins of today and 1-0 wins of last year

[Bocephus]

If it is a high ankle sprain:
Grade 1 would be about 3 weeks
Grade 2 would be about 2 months
Grade 3 Rolston wouldn't be back until the playoffs (if they made them)

[Frankie D]

If vrana is the modern sergei brylin, then we should see him centering elias and gionta on saturday.

[Brick]

I think this was the same injury Crosby had last year, RJ. And he was out for a few months. Maybe we'll actually see Halischuk soon.

[TG]

As a reference point -- and we don't know how the injuries compare -- Sidney Crosby missed 29 total games last season with a high-ankle sprain. He initially missed 21 games, returned to play three games and missed another eight after that.

[kstatik]

I'm really glad that so many of the armchair GMs here are also
armchair doctors! We'd sure be in some trouble if we didn't have
at least a few of them on staff...

As for Rolston, at least he got his first goal of the season before
that injury... who knows when he'll be back in the line-up. I guess
that at the very least, Vrana is going to log some ice time.

Let's see if HE can light the lamp!

[FOTC]

TG, was it Mike Levine that cut you off? I saw him a couple of times at various Devils events and he didn't come off as the nicest guy.

[TG]

It wasn't Mike and I didn't say the person wasn't nice. He was just doing his job, just like I was doing mine.

[Pearl Jammed(RJ Arditti)]

i have two things to say about winning 1-0. A win is still a win at the end of the day, but as for these 1-0 wins being better than last years i say.. Don't poop in my cheerios and call it a banana, cause its still poop no matter what you want to call it

[Maxwell]

My quick thoughts from tonight's game. I had to DVR it and just finished:

There were a number of checks the Devils issued that got no credit - two of them by Holik. I thought the Thrashers were very weak in their physical game.

John Madden does so many unsexy things extremely well - mainly positioning. He seems to always be in the way of a pass, and just doesn't turn the puck over very much.

Mike Mottau's icing with about 6 min to go in the second was absolutely DISGUSTING. There was no reason to try that ridiculous pass.

Is there a team in the NHL that has more Blocked Shots Against than the Devils? I don't know what is going on (and I said this in a recent post), but I feel like the Mac-style of shot from wherever, whenever, for whatever reason causes some pretty unnerving turnovers and unproductive offensive chances. They end up with a ton of shots, but I would estimate about 85% of them are VERY low-percentage chances.

Pando, although his role is obviously not to score goals, needs to work on his wrist shot a bit. Seemed like every shot he took was on its way down by the time it reached the net.

I thought Zubrus and Greenie had very strong games. Also, Zajac looked better than he had in the first few. ALSO, if it weren't for Marty we would've lost that game tonight 4-1.

Lastly, on Rolston, it really seems that he's going to be out for a while. Although it's a loss, I'm happier it's a loss sooner than later. I think the Devils will make it to the playoffs, which is when we will need him the most (obviously). It's just a matter of whether or not he's strong enough at that point to produce like he has the lost three seasons.

On Rolston's goal, and he mentioned it was just "by chance", Gionta ended up at the point. I liked the idea of Gio being the QB on the PP. Why Not? He's got great puck-handling ability, he's quick, and he has a great shot. I guess a W is a W, but losing Rolston will definitely hurt through the month of November.