“It was kind of a process of elimination,” he said of diagnosing the ailment. “I think we’ve been going through different tests the last couple of months and trying to figure out where we can make adjustments and fix things. And that was what it ultimately came down to. It more about the timing of when we could get it out and when we could get it out and how long we wanted to wait. The downside is if you wait too long and wait until it ruptures, then I was potentially out for two or three weeks. This was kind of the, I guess, the last straw that we came to where it was time to get it out before it came to the rupturing and that kind of stuff.”

Asked if it had been bad for a while, he said, “I knew going into the road trip I was going to come home. Right now it’s all about just the recovery and the pain threshold, letting the scars and stuff heal a little bit. I’m moving  a lot more today than I was yesterday, so that’s a good thing.”

Asked about the timing of the surgery, he said, “The timing sucks at this point when we’re going through the struggles that we are, the last thing I want to do is get off the ice. But it was a matter of looking at it from a season-long standpoint and what gives us a best chance to succeed throughout the whole year and be back healthy.”