Want to sum up the last few years for Rick DiPietro and the Islanders?
The goalie entered the NHL’s two-week Olympic break with his surgically repaired knee in good shape and not having missed a practice due to injury since returning on Jan. 6. And now, on the eve of the team’s return to the ice tonight against Chicago at the Coliseum, he’s out indefinitely with swelling in the knee.
Still, the 28-year-old was not terribly discouraged by the news, saying tests showed yesterday that everything is fine structurally with the knee.
“It’s precautionary,” DiPietro said after returning to the team’s practice facility after practice, where he worked out. “After seven or eight days off, to kick it back into full gear might have irritated it a little bit. There’s nothing major to report, just the stuff that goes along with the territory of coming back from a serious injury.”
DiPietro reported he had no problems after Sunday’s practice, which he participated in fully, but that his knee stiffened late Sunday and yesterday morning.
That, not surprisingly, raised alarms, since he sat out all but five games a year ago and then missed the first three months of this season rehabbing the knee.
When asked what he thought initially when the stiffness began, DiPietro responded: “The worst, always. You fear the worst, hope for the best.”
Given his history, it would be almost impossible not to. But yesterday’s results, he said, were “as close to the best as possible.”
Still, coach Scott Gordon, who returned early yesterday morning after serving as an assistant in Team USA’s silver medal Olympic run, admitted to being concerned when he first heard of DiPietro’s latest medical update.
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Gordon said he can use Team USA’s Olympic success as proof the Isles are on the right track, at least.
“For me, it was good to see that probably 80 [to] 90 percent of what we did in the Olympics as a team was how we try to do things here,” Gordon said of the team, which lost to Canada, 3-2, in overtime. “Obviously, we had more experienced players in the Olympics, but ultimately that’s what we want our team to be.”