It was reported last night that Marian Hossa will undergo shoulder surgery at some point today on his partially torn rotator cuff. This news comes just one day after the initial story of his injury broke, and that surgery would be the last resort if Hossa didn’t respond well to other methods of rehab.
Stan Bowman said earlier in the week:
If it’s something that needs to be fixed, that would be the way to go. Surgery would be a last resort and we’re not at that point, but if we have to do it, we have to do it.”
The injury was said to have happen when the Red Wings faced the Blackhawks in the Conference Finals, which resulted in Hossa’s lack of production in the Stanley Cup Finals against Pittsburgh. But Red Wing general manager, Ken Holland, claims that Hossa was damaged goods when they signed him last year, and surgery was deemed unnecessary then.
Yesterday, a few days after Bowman made the statement above, he said:
Marian’s injury did not respond sufficiently to our non-operative treatment over the last three weeks, so we have collectively decided to go ahead with the surgery.”
Dealing with the injury now is the right choice. Instead of avoiding surgery and run the risk of having it bother him throughout the season is the better long-term decision for a guy locked up for over a decade.
The four months that Hossa is expected to miss while rehabbing from today’s shoulder surgery will take him away from the action until the end of November. His absence from the line-up will be missed. You can’t replace a player with Hossa’s production, but having him come back healthy will be better than him possibly missing any time late in the season if the injury were to become worse.
This is when having as many capable forwards as the Blackhawks have will prove to be valuable. Hossa’s injury ensures that Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg and possibly Dustin Byfuglien will stay with the organization for the immediate future. Like Tallon’s inability to move Nikolai Khabibulin paid dividends, not moving a forward for a defenseman or back up goalie could be the best move made this summer – at least to start the season.
On a slight tangent, the trade rumors about Sharp should be ignored. We don’t know how Stan Bowman works yet, but it would be stupid to move Sharpie. Two years ago he tallied thirty-six goals ranking him 13th in the league that year, and was regarded as one of the best defensive forwards in the league finishing high in the Selke Award voting. Last year he was dealing with a nagging knee injury in the second half of the season that led to a lower number of goals – twenty-six.
At his $3.9M cap-hit next season, it doesn’t make sense to move him now when the team is under the cap, and when the team has a ‘win now’ attitude. However, next summer when the Blackhawks need to re-sign the big three, Sharp might be a goner.
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