Players who were considered injury prone, but then recovered and had some impressive seasons after that

[DL44]

Chris Tanev

Not really. He continues to injured at the end of of the season/playoffs every year when his team needs him most.

 

[DaveG]

I seem to remember Gary Roberts having struggles with injury. He had a very good later-half of his career. He was never a point per game player, but even in Florida his numbers were decent.

yeah very serious neck injury nearly caused his retirement. Takes a season off, gets traded to Carolina, and plays the vast majority of the next 5 seasons between the Canes and Leafs.

 

[Zirakzigil]

 

[Voight]

I seem to remember Gary Roberts having struggles with injury. He had a very good later-half of his career. He was never a point per game player, but even in Florida his numbers were decent.

He retired at 30 because of injuries, came back and played until he was 43.

Honestly not sure I'd put Lemieux here. Yes, beating cancer and remaining a top player is fantastic but from that point on he only played 70 games twice.

 

[Zirakzigil]

He retired at 30 because of injuries, came back and played until he was 43.



Honestly not sure I'd put Lemieux here. Yes, beating cancer and remaining a top player is fantastic but from that point on he only played 70 games twice.

Question wasnt about playing full seasons afterwards but who recovered and had impressive seasons. You verified my point. He came back and was still one of the best.

 

[Machinehead]

Zibanejad had to have at least 3 or 4 concussions before his first 70 point season, and then his 80+ and 90+ point seasons came after getting another one in 2020.

2020 was the last time he missed more than one game.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Justin Williams.

Came here to post this. Not only did the guy seem to be hurt all the time, but it was always a different injury. Then he became iron man on the Kings. lol

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Barkov.

 

[HockeyVirus]

Auston Matthews. Used to be lots of fun debates about how he wasn't actually that good because he was a career high 70 point player due to all the time missed.

Blew out his shoulder and his back in B2B seasons, plus his wrist needing surgery.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Not really. He continues to injured at the end of of the season/playoffs every year when his team needs him most.

This is just the casual sport of smearing players.

He played 75 games last season and 19 playoff games with DAL. That's a great comeback.

 

[karltonian]

Karlsson.

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

Maurice Richard

 

[RandV]

This is just the casual sport of smearing players.

He played 75 games last season and 19 playoff games with DAL. That's a great comeback.

Chris Tanev is certainly no ironman but was greatly overrated as an "injury prone" player when people started talking like he was made of glass with Vancouver. He did have a rough 3 season stretch between 2016-17 and 2018-19 missing 30-40 games a season, but I tended to notice people trashing him would look at his career NHL GP per season totals with anything missed as 'injuries' conveniently missing/ignoring that his first 3 pro seasons was split between NHL/AHL with barely an injury between them, if any.

Overall through an ongoing 14 professional seasons aside from that 3 year bad stretch he's generally averaged about 70 games a season. Really little difference from say Travis Hamonic, who Vancouver/Calgary basically swapped but no one ever hyper focus on as being majorly injury prone.

Really it's just thing like this tends to happen when a player is exposed to the massive Toronto fanbase/media in trade rumours for a few seasons.

 

[Statto]

Justin Williams.

That was my choice. Plenty of LA fans complained about his injury history when we signed him (IIRC he was recovering from something when we did), but the types of injuries always seemed unfortunate to me rather than repeated connected issues. So personally I wasn’t worried although I’m ever the optimist.

Gaborik was another and he had his issues for the Kings also, but in 2014 he was nails. He went to the hard areas, scored huge goals and after 2 rounds he was our main Conn Smythe candidate before slightly cooling off. Injury problems came back unfortunately which is a shame as it definitely affects his legacy.

 

[Michoulicious]

I start with Crosby.

Bergeron
Ryan
Stamkos
Markstrom IIRC

 

[BoltSTH]

Stamkos came back from 2, near career ending, injuries. Broken leg, blot clot in his shoulder.

 

[HisNoodliness]

Maurice Richard

He was the first guy that I thought of. He almost didn't make the NHL because of injuries in juniors. He was hurt a lot as a young player, and picked up a new problem nearly every year throughout his career. Despite that, he had about 14/18 years where he was healthy enough to have become one of the all timers.

 

[DL44]

Chris Tanev is certainly no ironman but was greatly overrated as an "injury prone" player when people started talking like he was made of glass with Vancouver. He did have a rough 3 season stretch between 2016-17 and 2018-19 missing 30-40 games a season, but I tended to notice people trashing him would look at his career NHL GP per season totals with anything missed as 'injuries' conveniently missing/ignoring that his first 3 pro seasons was split between NHL/AHL with barely an injury between them, if any.

Overall through an ongoing 14 professional seasons aside from that 3 year bad stretch he's generally averaged about 70 games a season. Really little difference from say Travis Hamonic, who Vancouver/Calgary basically swapped but no one ever hyper focus on as being majorly injury prone.

Really it's just thing like this tends to happen when a player is exposed to the massive Toronto fanbase/media in trade rumours for a few seasons.

Nothing to do with Tor.
Nothing to do with his games played...
But like clockwork... every year... whether its just brutal luck ... he has been unavailable to his teams to finish the last 3 seasons healthy in crunch time (and then there's his van years). It's unfortunate.
It's why I was happy he left Vancouver... It's why I wanted nothing to do with him at the deadline or in free agency.

He's a popular teammate, fan favorite for many, has the warrior monikor for his shot blocking and playing while banged up - which is a lot... and too much for my liking.

I'm not caually smearing a player... its not a smear to point out he hasn't quite overcome his knack for (timely) injury.

 

[Lunatik]

Mikael Backlund once they gave him the mesh.

Don't forget that before the Flames traded for Adrian Aucoin, he was referred to as Augroin because of all his groin injuries.

Best Flames example though is Gary Roberts, was forced to retire because of his neck, but managed to come back the next season still and went on to play almost 700 more games and putting up 200+ goals, just shy of 450 points and 900 PIMs. And in 2001-02 he nearly carried the (mostly) Sundin-less Leafs to the finals on 2 wrecked shoulders.

 

[SirPaste]

Bergeron is the first name that came to mind

 

[MXD]

Jean Ratelle is probably the OG.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

How about Makar and J. Hughes?

Hopefully in ten years we can post guys like Puljujarvi and Slafkovsky into this thread.

Um, J Hughes is still VERY much considered injury prone. He's literally only played 1 season over 62 games in his 5 year career.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Eichel. Never completed a season in Buffalo, had the whole neck surgery affair that resulted in his trade to Vegas during which he missed all but the last two months of the season, then lead Vegas to the Cup the following season based significantly on his efforts (was mentioned for the Conn Smythe).

Perhaps not a statistically impressive season individually, but his presence usually controlled the ice while he was on for the full 200 feet.

 

[Stive Morgan]

Guy in my avatar looked like he was done at one point

48 games played as a 30 years old
7 games played as a 31 years old
13 games played as a 32 years old

Missing 178 games in 3 seasons, at that age, makes the alarm bells go off big time.

But Markov came back in full force. The next four season, he missed a total of 2 games and was awesome offensively and defensively.

Then he played one final season at 37 tears old, where he missed 20 games. Some decline in his play was starting to show but he could have easily played another season in the NHL under the right circumstances

One of my all-time favourite hockey memories is when Markov came back from the knee or ankle injury (forget which one) and scored the first 2 goals in a game against the NY Islanders, and the broadcast announcer said "it's 2 to nothing for Andrei Markov!"

EDIT: It was 19 December 2009 so it would've been the ankle injury. Halak also had a 40-save shutout because of course

 

[BlueSeal]

Tarasenko is a prime example. Multiple shoulder injuries and didn't play much for a few years. Has been healthy and playing well lately.

His situation isn't injury prone, it's the reason he left St. Louis.

The most famous example has to be Rick Dipietro