Capitals goaltender Henrik Lundqvist announced on social media Monday morning that he will have open-heart surgery.
“Staying positive here,” Lundqvist wrote.
— Henrik Lundqvist (@hlundqvist35) December 28, 2020
His full message reads:
Last 3 weeks my focus has shifted from training camp and the upcoming season to my health and what I can and can’t do.
Scheduled for an open heart surgery now – aortic valve replacement, aortic root, and ascending aortic replacement, to be more exact.
We all have our mountains to climb. Staying positive here and set on the road to recovery.
HL
The Capitals replied on social media. “The Capitals and the entire hockey world are with you Hank, and wish you a speedy recovery,” the team wrote.
The announcement comes two weeks after Lundqvist revealed that he would miss the entire 2020-21 season due to the heart condition.
“For several weeks now, I’ve been undergoing several different tests related to a heart condition and after lots of discussions with doctors around the country and finally receiving the last results this week, I, unfortunately, won’t be unable to join the team this year and [will] continue the process to fix these issues,” Lundqvist said. “I can say for the past two months, I felt so inspired and committed to preparing myself for this season. The daily skates and workouts and just the thought of playing in DC really brought me lots of excitement. It’s still very hard for me to process all of this and kind of shocking to be honest. But with the experts involved, I know this is the only way of action.”
Last week, Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said that Hank managed the issue his entire career, but a routine physical revealed how dangerous things had gotten.
“Obviously, we were all excited to add him to our team and he was excited to come,” MacLellan said. “It looked like a perfect fit for both sides. Everybody within the organization, his family, everybody was excited to see how it would play out. And then I think we started further exploring where he’s at physically, his risk level is not acceptable for him to continue to play. It’s unfortunate. It was emotional for him and his family. I think we’re grateful that he went down that road. Our medical staff, our trainer pushed him down that road and explored it more. I think the result is good. He’s very aware of where his health is at. I think everybody’s a little disappointed that we couldn’t see what we could have done with him in the lineup.”
From everyone at RMNB, we wish you all the best, Hank.
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