"It was a nothing thing, really," Mason said. "I turned to go back to the net, opened my knee up to push out and the meniscus flipped up and got caught in between the joint there. That's a pretty fluke accident there."
Mason had been playing through other issues in his right knee this season. He missed six games in January when he left a game against the Boston Bruins with an injured knee. He didn't want to have the surgery then, rested a few days and played through it for five consecutive games before having to bow out again.
Now that he's had the surgery, he thinks he won't have to worry about it again because nothing bothered him after having surgery on his left knee in September 2008. That was a similar situation when Mason thought he could play through it, but had his knee buckle.
It was the Columbus Blue Jackets third-round pick's last year in juniors when he was playing for the Kitchener Rangers and made a routine move pushing off his left foot to go from one goalpost to the other.
"My knee buckled and I went in for surgery a couple days later," Mason said. "Originally with that one they tried repairing the meniscus and that was a four-month recovery. My second time skating back, I tore it again. They just don't have much success repairing meniscus for athletes, especially with goaltenders. There's very little blood supply to it so it's not easy to heal itself. We ended up taking the meniscus out of my left knee and now my right knee.
"I've never had a problem – knock on wood – with my left knee. I don't forsee any problems with this one in the future. I'm just looking forward to, like I said, we know that we've found the problem and dealt with it and just getting back to games hopefully sooner rather than later."
