Trying to project how long a player will be lost to injury is a fool’s errand, but with TJ Oshie, there is some recent precedent. The Washington Capitals announced that Connor Brown was out indefinitely before revealing a few weeks later that he had a torn ACL surgically repaired. Brown will be back no earlier than April and likely be lost for the season.
The Capitals classified Oshie as out indefinitely after pulling up lame while skating up the ice against the Nashville Predators.
Oshie immediately flew home to Washington DC after the Nashville game and has not skated ever since.
Wednesday, Peter Laviolette spoke to the 106.7 The Fan’s Sports Junkies and was asked to address Oshie’s status. Was TJ, like Brown, going to be out for a long time?
“Yeah, we’ve already come out and said that,” Laviolette said. “He’s out indefinitely.”
Laviolette then described how the Capitals announce injuries to the media.
“I don’t know. They try to… There’s never an exact number or anything,” Laviolette said. “If somebody’s out three days or four days or five days, we’ll call it day-to-day. Somebody’s going to be out two weeks, we’ll call it week-to-week. That at least gives people an idea, fans an idea of how long somebody’s going to be out. If we’re not sure ourselves, somebody’s going to be two weeks or three. We’re not going to say two weeks or three weeks, we’ll say week-to-week. If somebody goes out indefinitely that means we’re not even sure where this lays just yet. And then, longterm is longterm.
“I think the guys do a good job getting media (the) information right away,” he added. “I didn’t know what happened to Malenstyn, you know, other than he wouldn’t be back. Eventually, once you get off the bench, you find out that he wasn’t coming back for the game. And then you look into the problems that are out there.”
The Sports Junkies observed that Laviolette sounded tired and bitter.
“Probably all of it,” Laviolette said. “Getting over that cold, too. It’s been two weeks. Everybody’s got it.”
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
