The Florida Panthers are no strangers to being snake bit with injuries. It could be argued that injuries have been the most prevalent and negative occurrence for this franchise over the last 5 years.
Most people would say that injuries are just part of the game and good teams just overcome them.
Perhaps.
But when you are an organization lacking depth for the better part of 10 years any major injury hurts. No team could overcome the laundry list of injuries to main starters over the last 2-3 years.
Thanks to GM Dale Tallon the Florida Panthers finally have one of the best farm systems in hockey. But this year's golden boy and first overall pick, Aaron Ekblad, suffered a concussion this week while playing a junior exhibition game against the Czech Republic. He will be held out of the rest of Canada's summer development camp for the world junior championship as a precautionary measure.
Tallon said Ekblad is to make a "full recovery" and will be ready to go for Panthers rookie camp in mid-September. But when an 18-year-old suffers a concussion, it becomes something to closely monitor moving forward.
As hockey/sports fans we know the next concussion has a compounding effect and the time away from the game predictably becomes longer with each injury. With the tough style of game Ekblad plays, it is paramount he go through this entire season without another head injury like this.
Sometimes when an athlete becomes "concussion prone," they start becoming a player who is in their own head because of the injuries to their own head. Then they become more protective and timid instead of full bore all the time.
Yes I know this is probably coming across as "the sky is falling" type stuff or some sort of overreaction, but we know concussions are not to be taken lightly. He has a lot of time in front of him to get right and move forward.
But we have seen players whose careers were damaged, shortened, or immediately over, because of a bad concussion(David Booth anyone?). All reports were he seemed fine after the game, so perhaps this is a very mild concussion that doctors are not that concerned about.
For a cornerstone player like Ekblad to suffer this kind of injury before rookie camp even starts is something that needs to be concerning for all of those associated with the Florida Panthers.
Dan Spiegel... Florida Panthers Media Follow me on Twitter Join the Florida Panthers Insiders FB Page Connect with me on Google Plus