Chris Tanev did everything he could to be back in time for training camp.
But that doesn’t mean he was 100% when the season started.
You don’t just miraculously recover from major surgery to fix your torn labrum and expect everything to be perfect when you return to the ice.
But the Calgary Flames defenceman has been getting stronger and feeling better. He’s building and is a lot further along the process than he was a month ago.
“It’s coming along, for sure,” Tanev said. “I mean, I definitely came back, sort of, as early as I could and tried to be available as quick as I can. I feel like my game is getting better as I’m playing more here.
“It’s a long season and I just need to stay with the process and keep getting stronger and keep getting better on the ice.”
Tanev missed five games in early November with an undisclosed injury, but has otherwise been playing 20:04 per game this season. That’s only slightly down from the average of 20:28 he logged during the 2021-22 campaign.
So it’s not as if the Flames aren’t relying on him to play a big role. But head coach Darryl Sutter said Monday that Tanev’s recovery impacted the way the team paired up its defencemen this season.
“You’ve got to remember, (Tanev) had major shoulder surgery and he’s just starting to get his game back,” Sutter said. “That impacts who he plays with and how they play, too.”
For a player who is known for his tenaciousness in the defensive end and is arguably the Flames’ best shutdown d-man, getting him back to something resembling 100% is obviously an imperative.
That he’s not there quite yet is to be expected.
When it was announced at the end of May that the 32-year-old would be undergoing surgery after playing with a torn labrum and separated shoulder, most estimates had him out for four-to-six months. If he’d taken the long end of that estimate to get back on the ice, he’d only be returning to action with the Flames around now. Instead, Tanev was skating on the first day of training camp in mid-September.
So it’s no surprise that he’s still building himself back up physically. He’s happy with the progress he’s made, though.
“There’s a lot of things when you have a major surgery, I’ve never really experienced it before so it’s a long summer,” Tanev said. “(There’s) a lot of things that go into trying to come back as quick as you can. It’s a combination of things. You can’t really skate for the majority of the summer, so a lot of stuff like that.
“(Now), it’s going out there, being confident and playing my game.”
NEW LINEMATES, SAME EXPECTATIONS
Adam Ruzicka was set to have new linemates on Tuesday night against the Florida Panthers.
He insisted that didn’t change much about, well, anything.
After spending most of his time with the Flames this season playing alongside Elias Lindholm and Tyler Toffoli on the Flames’ top line, Ruzicka was set to skate with Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman.
“It doesn’t really matter who I play with,” Ruzicka said. “I want to be in the lineup and contribute.”
His head coach, though, stressed that building consistency was the key for a player who has picked up five goals and four assists in 11 games this season. That production has been big for the Flames. It slowed down a bit on the latter part of their recent six-game road-trip, but Ruzicka scored in the final game of that gruelling stretch and the team just wants more of the same.
“Our team’s not a high-scoring team, but he can contribute in that area and then just complete his whole game,” Sutter said. “I think that between the two long trips, those two games, he played really well and then I think he kind of tailed off at the start of the trip and then he got it back again.
“I think he’s just got to be really consistent in his preparation and that sort of thing. We talked about this with him in training camp, you can play him as your fourth-line centre but then you’re not maxing out what his ability is, so we talked to him then about moving to the wing and work on that. So he’s done a good job. He’s just got to continue to do that.”
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