New Jersey Devils About To Get Bad News About Aarne Talvitie

New Jersey Devils prospect Aarne Talvitie was amazing in the World Junior Championship, but it likely came at a major cost. We’re awaiting some bad news about his knee injury.

New Jersey Devils fans were so happy to see Penn State product Aarne Talvitie crush it during the World Junior Tournament last week. He led Team Finland as their captain to the gold medal, after beating Team USA in the final. It was the kind of performance that most prospects build off of, and it could have even led him to signing a professional deal in the offseason like Joey Anderson did last year. That is, until the news we learned on Wednesday.

Sara Civian writes about Penn State hockey, and reported that the Devils sixth-round pick in 2017 is likely done for the season. He suffered a bad knee injury that could keep him out a total of nine months. The earliest he could come back is in July, and he could miss time going into the 2019-20 season.

The injury looks simple at first, but his reaction is what should scare you. He goes into the boards, but not terribly hard, but as soon as he touched he immediately lifted his right leg. On the ice, lifting of the leg in never a good sign. Not even sure which leg is hurt, as his other leg went into the board, but based on his reaction I’d guess it’s the right.

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This is extremely upsetting, since big things could have been on the horizon for the 19 year old. He was on the Nittany Lions fourth line, but already scored 16 points in 17 games. He just came off a Juniors tourney where he had four goals and three assists. He was playing his best hockey, and was ready to make a run with Penn State.

Now, the dreams of Talvitie growing this year are over. The dreams of him making a run with his college team before signing with the Devils in the offseason are also likely over. He’s going to need to rehab all offseason, and that will keep him from growing on the ice.

This is a similar situation to what happened to Jesper Boqvist last season, although his wasn’t a season-ending injury. However, he also decided against spending parts of the offseason with his NHL club, and spent it with his Swedish team. Talvitie will likely do something similar, and either spend the offseason in Finland or with doctors with Penn State. With this issue, he isn’t going to make the Devils out of camp, so this is likely the best option.

It’s unfortunate, because he could have been a great player sooner rather than later. Now, we will have to wait.