Robb_K
Registered User
Cleary, there are fans here that are not familiar with how long it takes to heal from a serious injury, when playing a sport a a high level of competition. And after the healing, the athlete has to then build up the muscles to support the joint or previously damaged area, then after medical clearance to practise, to get timing back in their skating, and making the physical moves to make hockey plays while skating, and to get back in the groove to where you get the results your mind expects from all your past experience, so you end up succeeding at having your body do what you want it to do, when you attempt to do something (skating gets you where you expect to be in the proper time). At first coming back, you are slower to reaching places than your memory expects you to be. That effects your play with your stick and the puck, as well. It takes a lot of hours (first in practice), but also many in real game conditions, to get back to where you were before an injury.
And before you really can come all the way back, and play full bore, you have to trust that your previously damaged area is 100% back, and can do everything it did before, without having more risk of being injured (re-inured) than it did before the injury. Most players have a period after the doctor says they are 100% "healed", and give the okay for them to face contact again in regular league games, where they subconsciously are too tentative, because they are not really sure their previously damaged body part will hold up. They test it little by little, increasing the risk as they go, until they are sure they are completely healed and/or built up enough.
Fabbri had two serious injuries. He's come back earlier than I expected. He's been out a full year and a fair amount more. That's a LOT of time away from playing a sport at a high level of precision that takes regular playing to keep up. Even being out a week or two can throw off one's timing a bit. Imagine a year and a quarter of no regular play and only a little less of no practise. I tell you, it's WAYYY too early to push the panic button, and assume that he'll never get back remotely close to where he was. He's only played 20 games, with periods of no real games between. After such a long time off, it's pretty difficult to get back to where one was in a whole season. He may well be a fair amount below where he was at THE END of this season, and be ALL THE WAY BACK by the 30th game NEXT SEASON. I wouldn't dump him off for nothing now, just for that possibility. It looks to me like he can do much of what he could do before, physically. But his timing is off, and he's tentative in some situations. I think it's worth waiting to see how he progresses early next season, before dumping him off as a low-value throw-in in a trade, waiving him, and losing him for no return, Or releasing him after his contract ends, when there's still a reasonable chance he might return to 90-95% of what he was before, and a small possibility that he can come back all the way.
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