Claude Giroux is busy recovering from a concussion and while his progress is good right now, perhaps seeing him push things as hard as he is to get back on the ice isn’t the best course of action.
We’ve seen how carefully the Penguins handled Sidney Crosby and the Blues with David Perron. We’ve also seen how Marc Staal tried his best to play through his own concussion and wind up putting his season (and health) in jeopardy by doing so.
When you see Flyers GM Paul Holmgren say what he did to Ryan Bright of Philly Sports Daily, you wonder if Giroux might need to be more careful:
“Since the initial incident against Tampa, he has felt good at times, but there’s other times, in his words, ‘I just don’t feel right,’” said general manager Paul Holmgren on Friday. “So until he feels right for a whole day and we get to the next day and he feels good another day, it is what it is. He’s not gonna be back in there.”
It’s good that they won’t just throw him to the wolves in game action, but as we learned through others, sometimes the stress of pushing your body when skating and exerting that energy can be enough to re-aggravate concussion symptoms.
We’re not questioning the Flyers training staff here, they’re handling things well first-hand, as Sam Carchidi shares, and doing things how they see fit ‒ we’re worried that a player’s desire to get back to action might put their health and ability to have a longer career in harm’s way.