The sports hernia was his last injury before ending his career, but pretty much pick a body part, and Lupul had issues. He was deemed unfit to play by both the team doctors and an independent doctor. He had missed almost 50% of possible games over the previous 8 seasons. You have absolutely zero evidence that he was healthy enough to play.
Robidas has spoken publicly about how his injuries affected him. His knee was destroyed; the leg twice broken and then re-injured in exhibitions in his 2nd year here, after missing time in his first for a different injury.
"“I couldn’t do it,” he said of continuing to play. “I had two surgeries, the fracture, two screws in there … there was a lot happening with that right leg.”
"The last injury was tough and my body can’t keep up. When you can’t play, that’s how it goes. Things don’t don’t always go your way, so it was a chance to stand back and take care of my body, reflect on all those years I played. I was lucky, I was a smaller guy (for a defenceman), but it caught up to me.
“It was sad to not fulfill the whole contract. I wanted to help the Leafs, but there is not much you can do when your body breaks down.”
He says he gave the knee ample time to respond and it never did, to the point where he says it still hurts to even kick a soccer ball in the back yard with his daughter.
“I can live normally, but there are things i can’t do.”"
That is in the playoffs, and it's often not disclosed to team doctors until after the playoffs finish. There is a mandatory physical at the beginning of every year, and there is also a difference between something that can be temporarily played through with pain tolerance and dealt with after, and being in a state, even after the issue has been addressed, where you simply can't meet/get back to the physical requirements of professional hockey.
That doesn't mean he was able to play. Some players have more difficulty than others accepting when the only thing they really know is cut shorter than they had hoped.
