The numbers are simply numbing. Thirty-seven significant injuries in a 10-year career which have, to some, turned Vancouver Canucks defenceman Sami Salo's career into a running joke, a punch-line.
But he's not laughing. Not after what he went through in the Canucks spring playoff run. He was then playing what he called the best hockey of his career only to have it slip through his fingers because of his most humiliating, most painful and most bizarre setback yet.
It doesn't get any easier looking back now, four months later. The disappointment hasn't gone away. Instead, it sits there, a dark cloud of what could have been, what should have been.
"It was the best hockey I've ever played," Salo said of his playoffs. "Things were going my way. I was able to actually do some things in the playoffs I've never been able to do before."
But it all came to an agonizing end just 5:35 into the Canucks' second game of their second round playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks. That's when Salo unleashed his calling card, a laser of a slapshot which rocketed over the glove hand of Hawks goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. It was Salo's third goal, and sixth point, in his fifth playoff game.
But the big blast did some serious damage. Wincing, Salo went straight to the dressing room. Team doctor Mike Wilkenson chased closely behind. If you watch the replay and can lip read you will see trainer Mike Bernstein return from the medical room, lean into head coach Alain Vigneault and say, "He hurt his ass."
That's right, a bum strain at the lower back. A buttocks breach. He tore his gluteus medius muscle. The three gluteal muscles -- gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus -- are the buttocks muscles. They pull the thigh sideways, a motion that is integral to many basic skating moves.
"It felt like someone thrust a knife into my back," Salo said Tuesday after skating with the Canucks at UBC. "When I took the shot, it was shooting pain and it only got worse and worse. I felt something click right away. And then I sat on the bench the spasms started. It took a long time to settle down.
"It was very difficult to deal with. To score a goal, and then the next thing I know, I'm lying on the dressing-room floor. It wasn't fun. It was frustrating. I was lying there, seeing that the team was losing and there was nothing I could do. It didn't feel good."
Salo went down and the Canucks were never the same. It's a story we have seen before. Back in December and January, with Salo out because of an injury, the Canucks lost 11 of 15 games.
This year is expected to be different. The Canucks, by now, realize they can't expect Salo to be an 82-game player.
Last year, he missed 23 regular-season games with groin and rib injuries, plus Game 4 of the St. Louis series with an unknown lower-body hurt. It's been the same story for most of his career.
Somewhere around 60 games this year seems to be a more reasonable expectation. To that end, GM Mike Gillis made a trade last week for Christian Ehrhoff, a defenceman whose skill-set is similar to Salo's. Ehrhoff should cushion the blow any time the inevitable injury bug bites Salo.
To his credit, Salo came back to play the Canucks' final two playoff contests, Games 5 and 6 of the Chicago series thanks to "needles and painkillers." But he wasn't physically able to find that gear again which elevated his game.
If there's one thing Salo has been able to do in his career, it's cope with injuries. He'd rather look forward than into his past. He said he started training sooner than usual, citing, with a laugh, boredom.
"You know, there is some good feeling from those playoffs," said Salo, whose summer included an Olympic orientation camp with Team Finland.
"I found another gear in my game, that was the hockey of my career. And now I know what I can do. It will be one of my goals this season, to try and find that gear early in the season, to find that same mentality, to rediscover that game I had in the playoffs."
• The Canucks have re-signed defenceman Nathan McIver, who has played 36 career NHL games with Vancouver and Anaheim.
E-mail Canucks reporter Jason Botchford at jbotchford@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
|
