Healthy Gravel vies for Oilers job
Career of former Kings prospect back on track after treatment for Crohn’s disease
JIM MATHESON
Kevin Gravel looks like he could bench-press Kailer Yamamoto 20 times right now as he tries to earn one of the Edmonton Oilers’ defensive spots, but you should have seen him the summer of 2017.
He looked like death warmed over squared.
After a promising 49 games with Los Angeles Kings in 20162017, he got sicker and sicker until doctors decided his intestinal problem wasn’t just the flu or food poisoning.
It was Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of the bowel, which attacks anywhere in the digestive tract.
The problem hit him so hard and he lost so much weight, his 2017-2018 NHL season was compromised to where he spent a large chunk of the time in the AHL, only getting in 16 Kings games last season. He lost his spot to Oscar Fantenberg and Kurtis MacDermid.
The Crohn’s didn’t completely kick the stuffing out of his NHL chances there because he was back and playing AHL games in the fall of 2017. But, he only made it back to the NHL in the second half of the 2017-2018 season and as a parttimer. Again, other D moved past him on the ladder.
“I didn’t realize it would take so much out of me, until December (2017). You lose so much weight, then you put it on with prednisone. My body was going through a roller-coaster,” he said.
He’s not the first NHLer to get hit with Crohn’s, or ulcerative colitis, which goes after the large intestine, of course.
Theo Fleury was diagnosed with Crohn’s in 1995 after six NHL seasons. Kevin Dineen got it in the second of his 18 years in the NHL and spent lots of time in and out of hospital. Jordan Leopold had it.
Ex- Oiler Fernando Pisani felt the wrath of ulcerative colitis in 2007.
“I lost 40 pounds with this,” said Gravel. “I started to gradually lose weight (and feel gassed after workouts), and when it hit me hardest was when my wife left for a wedding and she was gone three days and I lost 20 pounds,” he said.
“Pretty rapid weight loss. I was in hospital for five or six days and needed surgery to remove an abscess on my intestine. Pretty tough summer (2017) but the doctors got it under control.”
His diet has changed, like everybody’s with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, which this writer has.
“I’ve struggled with heavy dairy things, whether that’s creamy sauces, or ice cream. I can’t handle ice cream anymore,” said Gravel, who’s off sundaes and waffle cones.
“Gluten and wheat, that seems fine with me.”
“Fruits and veggies? Yeah, I’m fine with that, too.”
Gravel is on maintenance drugs as Pisani was.
“I’m on Remicade. It’s an infusion every eight weeks. It’s an IV drip, takes a few hours. I go there, hang out and watch a TV show for two hours,” said Gravel.
When his contract was up July 1, the Kings said goodbye.
“No offer,” said Gravel, 26. “It’s a business, teams move in different directions. I loved my time in L.A. I was in that organization for eight years and won a Calder Cup (AHL title) for them.”
He didn’t know the Oilers were interested until July 1 when freeagency opened but he did play some games against them.
“There’s always somebody watching, no matter where you’re at, in the American League, anywhere. That’s why you have to show up every night ready to play because you never know who’s there. They might remember you from earlier in your career, and so you don’t know how things will turn out down the road,” said the 6-foot-4, 199-pound Michigan native who spent four years at St. Cloud State after being a fourthround draft pick in 2010 out of the USHL
With strong competition in camp, and Andrej Sekera tearing his Achilles, Gravel could be a No. 6 or a No. 7 on the back-end with free agent Jakub Jerabek, 2018 first-rounder Evan Bouchard — who either makes it here or goes back to junior — Keegan Lowe, Ryan Stanton, Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones and tryout veteran Jason Garrison all in the mix.
Gravel is just getting his feet wet at the NHL level.
“Yeah, four years of college, two years in the American League,” said Gravel, who played some power play in the AHL and had a few looks on the point with the Kings, too.
Enough that the left-shot, leftside defenceman caught the eye of Oilers coach Todd McLellan in short glimpses.
“We always respected him as a player in Los Angeles, we felt he was really effective and did some good defending and has the legs and mind to jump into the play,” said McLellan.
“We’ll have to pick our fifth, sixth, seventh D -men from a group of players ... some with zero NHL experience like Evan (Bouchard) coming to camp for the first time and those with a lot of experience like Garrison,” said McLellan. “Somewhere from that group we’ll have to have two or three players on our roster until we get healthy or business done.”