Understanding Andrei Svechnikov's Recovery from ACL Surgery - Interview with a Collegiate Athlete and Advocate

RALEIGH, North Carolina: Lexi Warnock is an athlete at Meredith College- just two miles from PNC Arena. She wears number 17 for the college’s field hockey team as a walk-on forward. Her Twitter bio describes herself as a “huge Caniac,” quoting Carolina Hurricanes broadcaster Tripp Tracy’s famous term for Carolina fans. She says her jersey number is a homage to Canes legend and current head coach Rod Brind’Amour.

Warnock herself is fresh off of an ACL injury, returning to competitive sports for the first time in ten months. She feels passionately about the mental toll of injuries, which is why she’s encouraging Canes fans to “lay off Andrei Svechnikov.” Svechnikov is arguably Carolina’s most famous player, a left-winger notorious for the “Michigan” style of goal-scoring. He is also returning from an ACL injury similar to Warnock’s. While ice and field hockey are two different sports, Warnock understands the mental battle athletes face after recovering from serious injuries, creating her advocacy, especially within the hockey world – ice or field.

Warnock did not grow up as a Canes fan. She grew up in Washington Capitals country and grew up watching “whatever hockey game was on TV” with her parents, especially her Dallas Stars fan father. She became a Hurricanes fan through her family friends and lived in Raleigh for college. She describes her initial fandom as being “convenience-based” before completely falling in love with the sport and with PNC’s atmosphere. She is a fan of Svechnikov because of their shared recovery. “He really inspired me, knowing that he came back from ACL surgery and has continued to be a really good player,” she said.

In April 2023, Warnock was playing a women’s lacrosse game at her Virginia high school. She was hit repeatedly on her right knee while practicing clearing. Warnock was playing defense at the time, preparing to get open for a clear. A teammate would utilize differing methods to “throw (me) off my game”. This teammate hit the inside of Warnock’s right knee multiple times, and her foot went into a hole on the field, causing hyperextension and twisting. She said she “didn’t get up for three minutes and kept moving”, while not playing. Warnock states that she believed it was “a normal sports injury at first… I walked on it for three days.” She and her parents went to a local emergency room the night the injury occurred after her right knee buckled, causing her to fall down stairs. She was told her injury was a sprain and to avoid walking on it for two weeks. She described the buckling as being “painful when it happened, and fine afterward.” She described herself as having a “bruised ego with some physical bruising.”

She went to an orthopedic surgeon three days after her injury after finding that her right knee was “triple the size of the left” and she was “unable to bend it.” Her surgeon found Warnock’s knee was guarded well to avoid buckling. Her diagnosis: fully torn ACL, two torn meniscuses, and a minor broken tibia. On May 31, 2023, Warnock underwent a nearly five-hour surgery for her ACL tear in Hannover, VA. That summer, she embarked to Meredith. Due to her intensive surgery and recovery, Warnock spent her freshman year of college in a wheelchair-accessible dorm.

Svechnikov’s injury occurred a month before Warnock’s – March 11, 2023. Unlike Warnock’s tear, his was non-contact. He had surgery before Warnock did, five days post-tear: March 16, 2023. Like Warnock, he continued to play after the injury. It occurred during the second period of a game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Svechnikov played into the third. On July 14, 2023, Svechnikov returned to the ice for the first time. He played in his first NHL game post-op on October 27, 2023. Warnock was watching intently, two miles away.

Warnock and Svechnikov began the physical recovery from their tears at Raleigh Orthopedics. The two shared the same physical therapist. “It probably wasn’t a primary doctor, but likely someone who worked on his case,” Warnock said. Physical recovery was challenging for Warnock, especially with her move from Richmond, VA, to Raleigh. She had to change physical therapists four different times.

“Emotional recovery was way harder than the physical” Warnock stated. “I am still dealing with the emotional.”

Warnock knew she was going to have a “normal” life post-injury. “I am an athlete at my core, and knowing I was likely not going to return to full form was hard.” Her prior aggressiveness is no longer what it was because of cautionary reasons. “Early stages were ‘will I ever be able to play sports again?’ Now, it’s the ‘am I going to play how I want to again? Will it come back? Will I tear it again?’ The chances are slim of a retear – about 2% – but the fact that it could come back stays in my head.”

“I still feel like I’m so far behind,” she said. “I still feel like for every step I take forward, everyone else on my team or in my sport is taking three. Watching for ten months on the sidelines sucked. Coming into college in a wheelchair sucked. Being in a giant leg brace sucked. There’s so much. I don’t feel that exclusion pressure anymore, but I have the mental block of not trusting my knee anymore. Even now, walking down the stairs, I’m still scared of getting hurt.”

“I auditioned for a dance team,” she stated, “And I feel as if I didn’t make it because of this injury history.”

Warnock’s experience is why she is going into sports psychology. “I want to understand what I’m going through. I want to help other athletes going through this experience. I can’t fix that for anybody else, but I can help with the fear of playing and getting hurt again.” She advocates for other athletes going through sports injuries online. She wants those in her position to know that they are not alone because Svechnikov did so for her.

She says she’s only “picked up (her) lacrosse stick twice” since her injury. “It’s not trauma or PTSD or anything like that – I just get scared. It’s what was in my hand. It was the first thing to hit my chest on the fall.”

Svechnikov’s return shocked Warnock. “My first thought was… holy crap, that’s a fast return time,” she said. “He got off the ice (after the injury) and they figured it out almost right away. If you see that injury video, only somebody else with an ACL tear knows right away what it is.”

She quietly compares her recovery to Svechnikov’s. She believes that his play style is different because of his injury. “He’s not as aggressive as he was. He fights less and keeps his head down, when before he would be fighting.”

Warnock uses the April 8 example of forward Sebastian Aho being elbowed in the stomach by a Columbus Blue Jackets player. She saw the play happen a few rows behind the ice. “Svechnikov would’ve fought that player in previous seasons,” she said. “Not now.”

“You can tell he favors his ‘good leg’ now,” she said. “Whichever knee he finds to be the good one, he puts all the pressure on it when he skates. He’s pushing off with the torn one. His left knee is almost always taking the stops. The harder jobs go to the left knee that wasn’t torn.”

“I wish other fans knew that because he’s physically recovered” she stated, “But he’s not fully mentally recovered. That never goes away. Athletes have to have full confidence in themselves and their ability. Svechnikov is a confident player, but those retear fears are probably at play. I think he knows that. He’s playing it safe, and I don’t blame him for it. Nobody should blame him for it. Everyone plays things safe after that kind of injury.”

On what she wishes those in the hockey world knew about Svechnikov’s season, Warnock said, “I wish people would stop making assumptions about why his play’s affected. He’s not becoming weak because of it. We, as fans, have all watched Svechnikov since he came to the Canes in 2018. We all know what kind of player he is.”

On Svechnikov’s birthday, Warnock posted on Twitter, “Now that I’m not in class… Happy birthday Svechie. You inspired me to come back to my sport post-ACL surgery, so needless to say you have impacted my life a lot. @ASvechnikov_37”

If she could ask Svechnikov anything, Warnock knows all of her questions would be along the lines of recovery. She emphasized, “I want to talk to him about how his recovery went, how his surgery went, what it was like post-surgery without ice time or ice play, what it was like going back for the first time… I want to know how he got back so fast. It’s impressive. I took ten months. I want to know how he was able to do it in six.”

Svechnikov and Warnock have never met, but they have interacted at open practices and warmups before games. “He blocked my view of things and would hit his stick at the boards where I was,” she said with a smile. “He smiled at me and kept on going. I think he was saying hello to me.”

Warnock paused. “Watching him come back from his surgery showed me that ‘yes, I can get back and play sports again,” she said. “Him coming back got me out of that tunnel of darkness into a light. He showed me that there’s a light at the end of this really horrible tunnel. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.”