Kris Draper to miss the regular season for Detroit
Forward for the Detroit Red Wings would have to miss the remainder of the preseason and might not be ready at the beginning of the regular season either.
Draper suffered from a groin injury that was believed to be minor. A recent ultra sound has shown a tear which won’t require surgery, but would remove Draper from the ice for some time to come until he can heal.
Draper’s preseason has ended already and it’s not clear when he would begin the regular season. Draper said that the ultrasound revealed more damage than he suspected to have sustained.
He was injured before the preseason began during training camp. “At first you think it’s not going to be that much and when I was progressing like I wanted to that’s when they sent me for the ultrasound”.
Draper doesn’t expect to be able to play when the regular season begins next Friday for the Red Wings. “I am not kidding myself”, Draper said. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, with what these guys have been going through and playing games”.
He said that he won’t rush his recovery and risk a relapse adding that if he did suffer a setback, it would be very difficult for him to handle it mentally while stating that the last few days he had been feeling much better. “I gotta be patient with it,
be smart with it, so that’s why I haven’t put a time limit”, Draper said.
Draper plans on skating and training by himself before he gets into the rigorous Detroit training regime. His off-ice trainings have been progressing well but he still couldn’t skate yet.
He said that before he is let back onto the ice by his trainer Piet Van Zant, he must be completely pain free. Draper put special emphasis on being rational through his recovery. “I’ve come this far and haven’t had any setbacks. I’ve got to continue to do
that”.
Coach Mike Babcock said that an injury in the training camp was serious hurdle, particularly for Kris. He said that while Draper missed out, the rest of the team was constantly improving and working hard to do so. “You need to get up to speed, so it makes
it harder for him”, Babcock said.
Centre Mike Modano had also sustained a comparatively minor groin injury. Modano practiced on Tuesday but won’t be playing any of the Red Wings preseason games until Friday. He said that the training camp was quiet different than what he was used to.
“It’s a tough camp, a lot of skating, a lot of moving”, Modano said. He added that there were major differences between how the Dallas Stars and the Detroit Red Wings trained. The pace in Detroit was much quicker. “It’s night and day”, Modano said but he
is trying to adjust to it.
Coach Babcock pitched in his two cents. He said that he wasn’t concerned with how other teams ran their camps but Detroit expected its players to be ready, work hard, do things fast while focussing on the details at the same time. “I’ve found over the years
if you do it like that in practice, you have a chance to do it like that in games”, Babcock said.
Modano said that to be effective he had to be physically fit and skate hard. “That’s kind of my situation now, just trying to play a little catch-up”.
He hoped that he could play Friday and Sunday’s game and push himself hard. He also wanted to play alongside Dan Cleary and Jiri Hudler to prepare himself for the regular season. They must use the preseason well if they hope to have chemistry into the regular
season.
The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 2008 and came within an inch of it again in 2009 but lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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