I don't know much about bacterial infections, but if the staph was in the blood stream it could technically travel to pretty much anywhere in the body that is supplied with blood (aside from maybe the brain because of the blood brain barrier), which would include the bones. I would assume if it was in the blood he would be in intensive care though so that doesn't seem like the case. Again I still think people are overreacting a bit thinking that they're gonna chop his leg off or have to remove half his ankle. If he's out of hospital and actually skating on it it doesn't sound like a career threatening infection.
For all we know the surgery could just be removing some superficial subcutaneous or cutaneous tissue (seems like the most likely case tbh) because its mostly just tendons that cross on the anterior ankle (which is where the infection location was described in the tweet) so there isn't a ton of of actual muscle belly there, and if they were cutting out serious structures there he wouldn't be out skating.
You are most likely correct. It's common to "debride" infected wounds, which is basically surgically removing all of the dead, necrotic tissue down to a depth where the wound has good blood supply. This sometimes has to be repeated. And the ankle is notorious for having a crappy blood supply to start with, so this doesn't help healing at all.
As for a previous poster asking if staph can spread to bone, the answer is yes, it's called osteomylelitis. It requires long courses of IV antibiotics +/- surgical excision of infected bone.
I'm guessing one of Klefbom's problems might be that he still has an open wound on his skin, and often those need skin grafts after the infection is settled down. If the open wound is at a site where the skate laces up tightly I can see it being a big problem, hence his "custom-fitted" skate. It probably has inserts to try to take pressure off the wound. I can't see any way that wouldn't greatly affect his skating.
I just hope he's 100% by next season.
