Giroux shows downside of playing through injuries

SPURRED PERHAPS by a report out of Canada, general manager Ron Hextall on Saturday opened - just a crack - the iron curtain he has constructed around all things Flyers, revealing that two of his best players competed at the end of this season without much use of their core muscles.

Two weeks after each was mysteriously ineffective in the Flyers' six-game playoff loss to the Capitals, the news that Claude Giroux and Shayne Gostisbehere both would require offseason hip and abdominal surgery was more explanatory than alarming.

Hip injuries particularly are sometimes traced to compensating for weakness or injury to the knees and back. Gostisbehere was playing in his first full NHL season after suffering a season-ending ACL tear in November 2014. A warrior who once played in 168 consecutive games, Giroux's recoveries from hand, leg and head injuries over the years have been borderline mystic.

After a freak golf injury resulted in finger surgery in the summer of 2013, Giroux accelerated his rehab to be ready for Opening Night. An ankle injury incurred during a game in November 2014 left him on crutches and in an ankle boot, yet he played in the next game four days later, and the following night as well.

Remember that gruesome bloody skate cut to his left leg in January of 2015? Third in the league in scoring at the time with 43 points, Giroux played in a game four days later but fell off the pace among league leaders with 30 points over the final 43 games.

Still, pretty productive. That was not the case after March 26 this season, a date that coincided with his second early departure due to a blow to the head within a month's time. Neither injury was announced as a concussion, but to the naked eye, Giroux seemed to have been left dazed or even unconscious by both hits delivered to his head.

Anyway, from that point on, the captain scored a total of one goal. Was it the hip? The abs? The head? A combo platter? Did a lack of mobility make him more susceptible to the big hits he incurred?

After scoring 16 goals in 50 games following his mid-November call-up, Gostisbehere had a 13-game drought until scoring in the regular-season finale. He also scored in Game 4 of the playoffs with the Caps, on his signature slap shot during a power play.

Both men are listed under 6-foot and, unlike players like T.J. Oshie, both seem smaller on the ice than their listed size.

Understandably, I caught a lot of flak back in November when I suggested the Flyers rebuild might actually be accelerated if they could obtain several talented young forwards for a 5-11, 28-year-old superstar that - at least in hockey's chronology - might be on the other side of his prime. Like everybody else I love everything about Giroux, as I said then: His skills, his shiftiness, the leadership he has grown into, and above all, his compete level.

That last part though, the compete level, has compelled him to play through things that many others likely wouldn't, and maybe shouldn't. We admire Giroux, surely. But it would have been nice to have the full version of what Peter Laviolette once dubbed "the best player in the world" against Washington in that first round.

Shoulder, wrist and back injuries led to a rapid decline in productivity for Vinny Lecavalier. R.J. Umberger, Matt Read - just a lost step or two can hamper or even exterminate a once-productive career.

We all love tough. But we love it a lot better in May than we do in December and January.

Two years ago, Giroux finished with 86 points. This year, he finished with 67. He is far from over the hill, and the window to get several high-ceiling young players or prospects for him has probably closed after another season of getting battered around, and the uncertainty of how well he will play following the most significant surgery of his career thus far.

"I'm pretty frustrated with myself," Giroux said a few days after the Flyers were eliminated. "Got to find a way, doesn't matter how it is. You've got to find a way."

Here's a way: Listen to your body in the years to come. Don't try to play through everything. Take your cue from Jaromir Jagr, from Wayne Gretzky, from 5-11 Steve Yzerman, who scored 51 points at age 38, his second-to-last season. Jagr's in- and out-of-season workout regime is legendary, did wonders for Scott Hartnell that offseason in which he took him under his wing.

He should run a camp. How to eat, how to sleep, how to keep your motor running. You want Giroux's story to be like Yzerman's was, winning his first Cup at age 32, when the young talent around him, that he helped shape, matured together.

You want him to be, at this time of the year, the best player in the world.

@samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon