Blandisi passed stress test provided by viral infection
The lockers stretch around the Penguins’ dressing room at their practice facility in Cranberry, forming one big horseshoe.
It begins on the far-left side with backup goalie Tristan Jarry and continues down the line with Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist. Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang sit near the center. And finally, on the last spot on the right end, is starting goalie Matt Murray.
Thursday, for the first time all season, there was one addition.
A wooden temporary locker had been dragged into the room to accommodate 25-year-old forward Joseph Blandisi, who was recalled from the AHL affiliate in WilkesBarre/Scranton Oct. 11 when the Penguins’ roster turned into a walking MASH unit. His position in the locker room is in some ways
symbolic of his status within the organization as one of the players right on the fringe of becoming a regular.
This has been Blandisi’s life over his first five seasons of pro hockey, as he has bounced between the AHL and NHL. Up. Down. Up. Down. More than a dozen times. He has been part of 39 transactions on three different teams.
Even though he’s not promised anything longterm with the Penguins, he brings something unique: perspective.
“No matter how many times I get sent down and called up,” Blandisi said. “Traded here. Traded there. I’ve faced bigger challenges than this before.”
To understand Blandisi’s point of view, venture back five years ago when a mysterious virus infected his body and invaded his psyche, leaving him dizzy, bed-ridden and searching for answers.
It all began in the winter of 2014. Blandisi had just been traded to the Barrie Colts of the OHL. As a sixth-round draft pick by the Colorado Avalanche a few years earlier, these were supposed to be the final few months of his amateur career. A contract and a place in the NHL awaited him at the end of the season.
But that’s when his health took a dramatic turn.
During a game against the Owen Sound, one of his previous teams, everything felt off. He’d jump over the boards and struggle to keep himself upright. When the referee dropped the puck, he’d see three. After the game, he staggered into the dressing room.
“I went to put my jersey in the bin. On the way over, I was wobbling over,” Blandisi said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to tell someone something.’”
As the days went on, his condition worsened. He couldn’t walk in a straight line. When he walked down the stairs, he had to hold onto a railing. He felt dizzy. His vision was blurred on the peripheral.
One time, he stepped on the ice to try to work through it. He started falling all over the place, clinging to the boards for support.
“It was like I never skated before,” Blandisi said. “That was the scariest thing ever.”
His teammates thought it was a joke. But quickly everyone realized it was no laughing matter. One minute, Blandisi was a young, healthy hockey player on the path to the NHL. The next, it was like he’d never played the game in his life.
One of the scariest moments came when Blandisi drove an hour home from Barrie to Markham, Ontario. He got out of his car and fell straight into a snow bank.
“My coordination was off,” Blandisi said. “Everything was wrong. It was like I was blacked out for seven months straight.”
Doctor after doctor examined the young hockey player. He estimates about a dozen tried to figure out what was wrong. None could correctly diagnose the problem or prescribe a path to recovery.
“After three or four months, I was even questioning, am I going to get back to normal?’” Blandisi said. “Or is this just who I am now?”
Blandisi leaned on the support of his parents. One day, he came home to find his mother crying.
“Are you ever going to get better?” she wept.
After many failed
attempts at identifying the problem, Blandisi visited with an acclaimed Torontoarea sports medicine doctor Anthony Galea. He sat in the office with wires connecting his brain to computers as the medical staff performed a wide range of tests.
Finally, a diagnosis: coxsackie viral infection, a rare condition that was named after an outbreak in the 1940s in Coxsackie, N.Y. In 2007, an outbreak in eastern China reportedly killed nearly two dozen children and hospitalized 200.
With Dr. Galea prescribing his treatment, slowly, Blandisi began to recover.
After about seven months off his feet, Blandisi was forced to almost re-learn basic functions. He started by throwing one ball in the air and catching it. Then, he bounced it. Then, there were two balls. Soon. he was juggling.
“When he got healthy, he was even more hungry than before because he was trying to make up for lost time,” his mother, Josie, said.
Initially, it looked like the illness might have derailed his NHL hopes. The Avalanche talked with Blandisi and explained that they weren’t in a position to take a risk on a player who might never return to the ice. There were no hard feelings from either side.
So instead of the NHL, Blandisi returned for an extra season with the Barrie Colts. The speedy agitator produced 112 points in 68 games (52 goals, 60 assist), proving he was not just back to his old form but a scrappy offensive weapon with an upside.
Blandisi began to see the silver lining in his situation. As a free agent, he was welcome to sign wherever he chose. He made a list of the lowest-scoring teams in the NHL and ultimately signed with the New Jersey Devils. During the 2015-16 season, he played 41 NHL games and produced 17 points.
“It was definitely scary for my career,” Blandisi said. “But it happened for a reason. It didn’t take me long to realize why it happened.”
His path since the health scare hasn’t been easy. He was traded to Anaheim and then, Jan. 17 of last year, he was acquired by the Penguins. In his current stint with the NHL club, he’s tallied two points, including the winning goal in the 7-4 victory Saturday at Minnesota.
Now, his status remains in flux as the players who broke camp with the team recover from injury. He’ll have to continue to produce if he’s going to prove he should stay with the Penguins once all their injured regulars get healthy.
But after what he’s been through before, fighting for a roster spot isn’t going to stress him out.
“The fact that I was able to overcome that,” Blandisi said. “It gives me motivation that I can overcome anything.”
“No matter how
many times I get sent down and called up. Traded here. Traded there. I’ve faced bigger challenges than this before.” — Joseph Blandisi