At the Capitals’ breakdown day, TJ Oshie revealed that he had a procedure to address his lingering back injury. The procedure was performed on Friday following the conclusion of the Caps’ season.
“I did a procedure yesterday,” Oshie said. “Double ablation, I guess it’s called.
“Basically, relieving the pain in the two levels, or one level on both sides that has given me problems in the past,” Oshie explained. “[It’s] not necessarily considered surgery, because I hopped up and drove home. Extremely minor. It was quick. It was like, five minutes.. from start time to start finish. I don’t think it’s simple, but to me, it seemed like it was just quick.”
The procedure appears to have gone well so far.
“I mean, I feel already a light-year’s difference than I did yesterday morning,” Oshie said. So that’s good news for me moving forward.
“I think, is going to help any little minor things that could happen. I mean, I don’t have a lot of travel plans this summer. My plans are to train and be ready, like I haven’t been able to for four, five years.”
Oshie’s back injury is well documented, stemming from when he played through the pain of a broken foot last season. He confirmed that his back was behind all three of his prolonged absences this season.
An extended offseason could prove beneficial for the 36-year-old forward. Repeated injuries have kept Oshie from a standard offseason schedule several years in a row.
“For me and some guys in there, kind of a big opportunity to have a full summer,” he explained. “I think it’s maybe been since 2010 that I missed playoffs. And since before we won the Cup that I didn’t have a surgery or something that needed a lot of time to rest after the season.”
Oshie’s play was less reliable this season, even when he was in the lineup. With over five months before the Caps’ next game and no surgery to recover from, he hopes to claw back to the player he used to be.
“Typically my training usually can’t really start until August, and then I’m kind of just playing catch up,” he said. “Big opportunity for me to come back and maybe look a little bit more like I did, you know, four, five years ago than try to have a full season without my back setting me back which, three times, all three times this year was because of that.“
He did note that the 36-game stretch before his season ended was his healthiest in over a year.
“I really didn’t have any good stretches there from last season until the one that happened in December,” Oshie said. “And then after that we met with surgeons from here, a guy from out in California. They got me on a, I was on a completely different regimen every day.
“The last half of the season, when I had that long stretch of games where I [had] nothing. I didn’t have groin things. No broken foot. I was going good there. I felt like the offense was rolling in, I was playing pretty physical.”
Like many of his teammates, he expressed frustration at how the season turned out.
“Sucks falling short,” he said. “Sucks putting a lot of effort and energy into the season and not having a chance to continue. Sucks feeling like you let the fans down. I mean, you know how much, I mean I bought season tickets this year. Those things aren’t cheap. You feel like you let the fans down all the time and, traffic to get to the matches and watch on TV, you feel bad about that.”
Oshie’s offseason plans focus on strengthening his midsection in order to keep his back from flaring up once again.
“My training regimen is going to be a lot different this year,” he said, “more focused on core strength and I guess, conditioning, you could call it, for next season.”
He later noted, “My core is pretty strong from this last three months here of working on it.”
“Twelve-pack, six-pack, what have you got going on there?” joked The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir, eliciting a grin from Oshie.
“No, my diet prevents, I think, the twelve pack” he chuckled.
“Me too!” a reporter piped up from offscreen to a chorus of laughter.
“We’re all in the same boat!” replied Oshie.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
