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VANCOUVER – Chris Tanev, who played nearly 10 minutes on a broken leg the night he was last in a Vancouver Canucks uniform, may finally be ready to suit up.

The understated blueliner blocked a Victor Hedman point-blank blast late in the first period of the Canucks’ 5-2 loss in Tampa Bay on Feb. 8. He was helped off the ice and examined by medical staff at Amalie Arena and was told he was fine and could return to action. It wasn’t until the next morning that Tanev realized the Hedman rocket had broken a bone in his lower leg.

“It went right through the side of my shin pad and broke my leg,” Tanev recalled after practice Friday at Rogers Arena. “He’s a big man and he shoots the puck hard and obviously it is what it is. A fractured fibula. It was like a hardest shot competition shot. I think he came off the bench and the puck came right out to him at the top circle and he was coming right down Broadway there.”

With Tanev hobbled, the Lightning pounced and took advantage of the outmanned situation to open the scoring. He missed the remaining five and a half minutes of the first period, but remarkably was on the ice to start the second. Even more incredibly, a certified doctor looked Tanev over and deemed him healthy enough to return to action. On a broken leg, he logged 9:48 over the final 40 minutes.

“I felt it right away, but I went in and saw the doc and he thought I was fine,” Tanev said. “I ended up playing the rest of the game, woke up and couldn’t really walk and we figured out something was wrong at that point.”

Ultimately, it was diagnosed as a broken bone in Tanev’s leg which has forced him to miss the past five weeks and 17 games. It’s his fourth serious injury of 2017-18 and, after playing just 38 games this season, comes on the heels of last season when he managed to play just 53 games. That’s a total of just 91 games he's appeared in so far during the past two seasons.

In November, the 28-year-old missed seven games with a broken thumb. He returned for three weeks and then missed seven more with a groin injury. Just two games into his return to the lineup, he took a puck in the face in Toronto on Jan. 6, lost six teeth and required gum surgery. To his credit, Tanev missed just two games after that episode, but was forced to wear full facial protection for a month which limited his ability to perform at the highest level.

Then in his 11th game back in action after getting hit in the face, Tanev put himself in the line of fire in Tampa and was back on the shelf.

“It sucks,” he said of being hurt as much as he has been this season. “It’s the second year in a row now that I’ve missed a good chunk of the season. It’s never fun when you’re sitting on the sideline and watching. Injuries are part of hockey. Three have been from pucks this year. I missed a few with a sore groin, but the majority of time I’ve missed was from puck injuries.

“If you’re out there on the PK a lot, you’re going to have to block shots and if you’re playing against the other team’s top line, you’re going to have to block shots. It’s something I’ve done for a long time. This year it’s resulted in me not playing a lot which I’m not happy about.”

That could change Saturday night when the Canucks host the San Jose Sharks. While Tanev travelled with the team on its recent road trip and took part in optional skates, he didn’t play. But he was a participant in his first full practice on Friday since this latest injury. Tanev was paired with Alex Edler throughout the workout, but couldn’t confirm that he’d be in the lineup against the Sharks.

And if he is, Tanev knows he’s not coming back to be the goal-scoring hero to end the team’s offensive drought.

“I just want to get in the game and play – and I’ll be happy,” he said. “We’ll see tomorrow (Saturday). It felt good today in practice.”