Connor McDavid Playing With His PCL Torn In Half

[iCanada]

So the 25 minutes a night of ice time for McDavid wasn't a good idea after all?

Yeah, who knew cheapshot artists like kneeordano would be lurking all over the place.

 

[LD29]

Wonder about the long term damage this will do. Not next year, but maybe when he turns 30. This could turn out bad.

 

[Mez]

Wonder about the long term damage this will do. Not next year, but maybe when he turns 30. This could turn out bad.

True, we could get destroyed by a meteor too.

 

[Crossfire Hurricane]

This is just selfish. McDavid of all people should know that the only way the Oilers will get better is if he sits out a season and they draft Lafreniere.

 

[Del Preston]

 

[StevenB]

Why take a year off if it isn't necessary by any means?

A year off could destroy his career if he was a fringe 4th liner who’s trying to make a name for himself but for the best player in the league. You shouldn’t want to risk a further knee injury to the best player in the league. Especially one who is arguably the best skater of all time. That’s not even considering he’s only 23 and has 15+ more years in the league.

 

[djpatm]

They're probably releasing it because he completely recovered using a revolutionary rehabilitation process and it's unlikely to have any impact on his future. They wouldn't advertise that he's putting his career in jeopardy by making a risky decision. They're obviously satisfied with the result and feel he's past any serious risk where this kind of thing being being public could backfire. It's also being released by his and Adidas' camp, not the Oilers. So it's marketing more than anything.

Use your brains people, there's millions upon millions of dollars at stake here. Some doctors recommended surgery, some didn't, and luckily the path they chose worked.

Doctors have never made a mistake in history and alternative treatment has never had unforeseen future consequences. Also, the Oilers organization is world renowned for making good choices and is exceptional at long term planning. There exist no credible examples of them making short sighted and rushed decisions.

 

[tsujimoto74]

If a 38 year old Chara can play 5+ years without a PCL, I think one of the freakiest athletes on the planet will likely be fine.

Of course, Chara's never needed to be good at skating to play his game, because he can pretty much reach anywhere in the defensive zone just standing still in one spot. Also, he's nearing the end of his career anyway, so he doesn't have a lot of playing years to worry about preserving. I'm not a doctor, and I won't pretend to be, but their situations aren't really similar, apart from the injury.

 

[Video Nasty]

Scary how many around here act like doctors are infallible gods who you should just listen to no matter what.

McDavid has a strong individual mind and likely a pretty good support system around him if he took all the available information and listened to his body.

Even routine surgery carries risk and if this is one of those situations where the answer isn’t obvious, it’s usually better to lean towards doing what McDavid chose to do.

 

[McDNicks17]

Of course, Chara's never needed to be good at skating to play his game, because he can pretty much reach anywhere in the defensive zone just standing still in one spot. Also, he's nearing the end of his career anyway, so he doesn't have a lot of playing years to worry about preserving. I'm not a doctor, and I won't pretend to be, but their situations aren't really similar, apart from the injury.

Having worse mobility doesn't mean he isn't working just as hard to move around.

He's also got a whole lot more body weight on that joint.

 

[grentthealien]

I didn’t see it posted here, but I feel it’s pertinent so I’ll link it below. This video was released immediately after Mcdavid’s injury. His prognosis was pretty optimistic and he did mention that it is possible to heal this without surgery.

I highly recommend Brian’s channel if you’re a sports fan. He doesn’t cover Hockey often, but he breaks down injuries from most sports and provides his own knowledge as well as other medical opinions/resources on it.

 

[BakedYams]

I don't doubt that surgery was recommended as choice #1, but surgery has it's own forms of risks and long-term complications. It's never a clear black/white proposition like the internet makes it out to be.

 

[Arpeggio]

Doctors have never made a mistake in history and alternative treatment has never had unforeseen future consequences. Also, the Oilers organization is world renowned for making good choices and is exceptional at long term planning. There exist no credible examples of them making short sighted and rushed decisions.

We don't even know if opting out of surgery was the riskier of the two options. From Rishaug's tweet, it sounds like having the surgery could potentially affect McDavid's career more than trying to rehab it without surgery.

And again, in that tweet, it says that the PCL was able to heal. They would not be releasing this if it was likely to be re-injured. Also ignored that this isn't coming from the Oilers, it's an Adidas production to market McDavid.

 

[grentthealien]

Scary how many around here act like doctors are infallible gods who you should just listen to no matter what.

McDavid has a strong individual mind and likely a pretty good support system around him if he took all the available information and listened to his body.

Even routine surgery carries risk and if this is one of those situations where the answer isn’t obvious, it’s usually better to lean towards doing what McDavid chose to do.

Absolutely. I value doctor’s opinions as much as anyone. They have spent their lives devoted to their profession and med school is certainly no walk in the park. That being said I’m in charge of my body, I only have one after all. I own it to myself to do my own research and get as many opinions as possible before making any possible lifetime commitments.

Far too many people have been wrongfully prescribed medication they didn’t need or even worse addicted to meds they didn’t even know were addictive by trusting their doctor’s word. I don’t recommend being rude or dismissive to doctors, however I think some healthy Skepticism is always good to have.

 

[mrv52]

Is "torn in half" a real medical term?

 

[Voight]

At that age, with the career potential ahead of him and the state of the Oilers, that's a pretty stupid thing to do.

The state of the Oilers? They'd be a basement team without him.

 

[lightstorm]

Wonder about the long term damage this will do. Not next year, but maybe when he turns 30. This could turn out bad.

What do they care what happens to him when he turns 30?

Katz, KLowe and Bobby Nick need to milk McDavid now and him having a surgery and oilers missing the playoffs was never an option.

 

[McJadeddog]

"I smoke 5 packs a day and 8 months later, I'm in great health."

I get Oiler fans want to be optimistic, but there's no way to know if the decision to forego surgery "worked" at this point in time

Yeah, this is 100% true. We really won't know until:

A) something bad happens that can be linked back to the decision not to have surgery

or

B) he is done his career and we can look back at it and say it didn't seem to affect him at all/much

It is WAY too early to know if this was a good decision or not.

 

[McJadeddog]

Bunch or garbage posts from internet doctors who didn't even read the story. Seems like he put the work in and made a miraculous recovery. No way he makes the plays that hes been making this year if its still torn!

Actually, there are actual doctors over in the Oilers board that are saying that if it was fully torn, it can't heal on its own. Of course, they don't know for sure whether it was 100% torn or not I guess. But apparently if it is 100% torn, there is no way for it to heal on it's own, outside of surgery. But hey, I'm just relaying information here, those guys could be wrong as well I suppose.

 

[McDNicks17]

What do they care what happens to him when he turns 30?

Katz, KLowe and Bobby Nick need to milk McDavid now and him having a surgery and oilers missing the playoffs was never an option.

It was McDavid's choice...

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Probably won't have a long term impact, it's already not having an effect on his play. Good on him for putting the team first, maybe if he did that at contract time the Oilers could build some depth so he could actually take some time off without the team cratering.

McDavid did do that at contract time. His contract is one of the best in the league b

 

[Spoilers]

ITT a bunch of keyboard doctors who know better than McDavid and a bunch of specialists.

The surgery could have done more damage than helped. Oil fans have seen this a lot in guys like Whitney, Hemsky, and Horcoff. It doesn’t always make everything better.

 

[Dondini]

other than age being a factor would doing the surgery say in his late 20s have the same out come success rate as doing it now? Or is it one of those things that if you let the pcl stay torn for so long it wouldn’t go back to normal function?

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Is Oilers management risking their franchise for the shot at being a wild card team and losing in the first round? Wow.

Oh look, another person that read the title and commented.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

other than age being a factor would doing the surgery say in his late 20s have the same out come success rate as doing it now? Or is it one of those things that if you let the pcl stay torn for so long it wouldn’t go back to normal function?

The problem with waiting until his late 20s is that it's possible that the joint would have degenerated and then surgery is pointless.

The PCL will never be normal, whether there is a surgical repair or not.

I suspect they're trying newer things like PRP injection and serial MRIs to monitor for the slightest signs of joint wear, but that's purely speculation on my part. Stuff they wouldn't do for a regular person.