New Jersey Devils centre Travis Zajac will make his season debut on Thursday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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Zajac had surgery on his left pectoral muscle on Aug. 17, which caused him to miss training camp and all 17 games the Devils have played this season. He was cleared to resume practice on Saturday and has been centring the top line between Taylor Hall and Kyle Palmieri, where he will play on Thursday.
He was originally expected to miss four to six months but his return comes just short of the three-month mark.
“I think just talking with the doctor we had kind of an internal timeline of probably closer to three to four months,” Zajac told reporters after morning skate in Toronto. “So it was just depending on how things progressed, how my strength was, everything conditional, that stuff. We knew it was going to heal properly. It was just how much I was going to be able to push it in the last month and get to where we are now. And everything is good.”
The 32-year-old has played all of his 11 seasons will the Devils and has compiled 155 goals and 280 assists in 779 games. This will only be the second time in his career — and first since 2011-2012 — that he has missed more than eight games in a season.
The Devils will look to use Zajac to help repeat what they did earlier in the season when they beat the Leafs 6-3 on Oct. 11, who will be without star player Auston Matthews (already ruled out).
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