Defenseman Olli Maatta will undergo his second shoulder surgery in less than a year today and will miss the remainder of the season, Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford announced in a press release late Tuesday night, thus confirming previous reports that Maatta’s season was likely over.
Any time a player has to have a second surgery on the same body part, questions arise. Did something go wrong with the first procedure? Is this going to be a career-long problem? Did he return from injury too soon?
Without an inside look at Maatta’s shoulder and a PhD, an answer to the first question is impossible. As for the second, only time will tell, but it certainly doesn’t look good. Shoulder injuries are often troublesome for defenseman. The physical nature of the position can take a toll and players have to be confident that their body will be able to take a hit in order to make a play.
It’s the third question that is the most worrisome. Did he come back too soon?
When Maatta had his surgery, on May 22, it was announced that he would miss four to six months while rehabbing. Fast forward to when the Penguins made their final roster cuts coming into the season on October 7 – just over four months later – Maatta wasn’t yet cleared to play.
“I expect that he’s pretty well ready to play (in the season opener October 9),” Penguins head coach Mike Johnston said on cut-down day. “We’ll see until I get the final word, but everything is leaning in the direction that he’ll probably play,”
Sure enough, Maatta was in the lineup two days later when the Pens hosted the Anaheim Ducks and dropped the puck on the 2014-15 season. His shoulder certainly LOOKED fine. He averaged nearly a hit per game in the 20 games he played this season, which was double the pace of his rookie year. Of course, it’s impossible to know how much each one of those hurt, unless Maatta himself says so, which isn’t likely.
But the story doesn’t end there. Just 19 days later, the team announced that Maatta would need to have surgery to remove a tumor on his thyroid gland. At the time, the team knew that there was strong possibility that it was cancerous. The condition wasn’t life or career threatening, and Maatta underwent surgery to have it removed, and again he returned to the lineup more quickly than expected.
A detail that seemed minor at the time that was that the condition had been initially discovered during a pre-season physical. So when Johnston and the Penguins staff put Maatta in the lineup on opening night – literally the first day he was cleared for contact – they knew at that point that he would need surgery on his neck in the next month.
So why rush? The team could have given Maatta another month off, taken care of his tumor – which did, in fact, turn out to be cancerous – and given his shoulder plenty of time to heal. Would it have made a difference? It’s impossible to say. But it sure would have been a prudent decision at the time.
Instead, Maatta’s second season has been a wash and the Penguins will go into the spring missing one of their best defensemen.
Photo credit: NHL
