WOUNDED WING WORRISOME
Brendan Gaunce will have surgery today and may have more than rehab on his mind
Like any restricted free agent, Brendan Gaunce would love to bring contract leverage to the bargaining table.
The problem is the versatile Vancouver Canucks forward doesn’t have much to sell management after a 57-game season in which he failed to score. And his left shoulder requires surgery to repair a labrum tear that sidelined him for the final 15 games of the NHL regular season.
That procedure will be performed Thursday in Vancouver and depending on severity of the tear, the 23-year-old centre-turned-winger could be sidelined from four to six months. Professional athletes recover quicker and the best prognosis for Gaunce would be a four-month recovery window and then ramping up his training and skating a month before main camp in Vancouver.
Gaunce, who also had a second-degree shoulder sprain in junior, was injured March 9 at Rogers Arena. He had offensive-zone puck possession late in the first period, but slid heavily into the cornerboards on a hit by the New York Islanders’ Nikolay Kulemin.
Gaunce’s left shoulder took the brunt of the impact and although he returned for the second period, he was shut down and surgery became the only option to fix the damage.
“The typical course following repairs is to put the patient in a sling from four to six weeks to allow the tissue — the damaged labrum — to heal back in position,” said Dr. Samuel Taylor of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
“After that, the next goal is to regain motion and strength in the shoulder to protect it during future contact.”
Which, of course, will bring up an interesting roster deployment question for the next Canucks head coach.
Willie Desjardins moved Gaunce to left wing because he thought it would ramp up his compete level and make him more effective on the forecheck.
After shoulder surgery and rehab — and knowing Derek Dorsett and Jake Virtanen project as fourth-line wingers — a move back to the middle makes sense because Gaunce is decent at faceoffs (51.2 per cent efficiency).
And the 6-foot-2, 217-pound 2012 first-round draft pick is more playmaker than scorer because he had just 51 shots this season.
“It was a good learning experience for him this year and we see him as a reliable two-way player,” Canucks general manager Jim Benning said Wednesday. “He has more offensive potential and a good release on his shot and we talked to him in our exit meetings about getting comfortable with the (NHL) pace and size of the players and he needs to finish off his chances more.
“He has the size and strength to get to the net, but he has to use it more. But he is a good penalty killer, good defensively and is versatile.”
However, that’s a story for camp. For now, it’s about an injury that’s becoming more prevalent in the NHL, even more than the NFL.
“Obviously, hockey is a pretty violent sport as far as collisions,” added Taylor. “The shoulder is one of the most frequent joints injured and in particular tears of the labrum. And it’s not so much related to the (shoulder) padding, but the nature of these injuries usually occurs with the arm in a certain position and that forces the ball out of the socket, either to the front or the back.
“It’s the way they hit the arm against the body as opposed to football with the arm in an outstretched position — which puts the labrum in more of a vulnerable spot.”
Athletes will endure exhaustive rehab to repair injuries because surgery is usually the least desirable option because scar tissue can form and range of motion can be affected. However, advancements in surgery techniques have allowed procedures to be more precise and allow tissue to heal quicker.
“Typically, arthroscopic surgery is a minimal evasive technique in which holes are poked around the shoulder — with the camera and instruments — and sometimes an incision dictates what they see,” added Taylor. “Certainly, techniques are better than were five, 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
“The goal is to give patients back range of motion and the function they had. We basically take things that are too loose and we make them tighter. And we take things that are too tight and make them looser. He (Gaunce) should be able to come back and play at the same level.”
Preventing shoulder injuries seems impossible. Bigger, faster, stronger players who don gladiator-like shoulder pads are going to inflict damage. And the sheer force of impact can make protective gear ineffective. So how do you prevent these injuries?
“That’s the hot topic, the Holy Grail if you will,” said Taylor. “No matter what you do, you’re going to see injuries like this. That being said, things teams and athletes can do to protect themselves are through strength and conditioning.
“Making sure there is adequate strength in the muscles that surround the shoulder to keep it stable and less prone to injury.”