Tavares 'doing great' in offseason recovery

John Tavares appears to be on track to return at full health next season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs captain is recovering from a big collision that sent him to the hospital during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"It's been a great offseason for myself, obviously from a health standpoint, but even more so I think just continuing to get back to work and try to get better and recover well, obviously I think some time really helps," Tavares said on NHL Network. "I'm really fortunate that it wasn't anything much more than the incident and I really kind of came out of the hospital and I've been doing really well ever since and didn't really have any hiccups or any issues, just kind of kept building from there.

"So it's been a good offseason, I'm doing great."

Tavares collided with Montreal Canadiens forward Corey Perry in the opening minutes of the playoffs, taking a knee to the head at full speed. He suffered a concussion and knee injury on the play but was discharged from the hospital the following day.

The 30-year-old resumed light skating not long after being discharged but had no timetable for a return to playing. He's slowly ramped up his offseason routine to get ready for the upcoming campaign.

"It was nice to just kind of get back out and working on some things I wanted to work on," Tavares said. "Come off the injury and be on the ice a lot and get a good feel for my game and go from there and then just try to be out there with a good bunch of guys up here up north."

Tavares posted 19 goals and 31 assists in 56 games last season.

Copyright (C) 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.