Klefbom: “It’s been a crazy season.”

Oscar Klefbom was a guest on my radio show on TSN1260 earlier today and he discussed his frustrating season.

Klefbom explained in great detail how his seasoned went awry in December.

“The whole season has been a really weird, tough situation for me. It’s been tough, especially mentally. It’s been a crazy season overall.

“It all started in preseason. Before the season started, the skate was rubbing on my ankle in a special way, kind of, and we had like rubs on my ankle. We had it under control, and I got some antibiotics right away. It was fine for a couple weeks, and then it came back again, but we still had it under control, and I got a bunch of antibiotics again.

“But then when I broke my knuckle. I had some days off and the ankle was pretty good too. But then on Christmas morning, the knuckle felt pretty good, and I was actually supposed to go with the team to Calgary, or I don’t know if it was Vancouver, the first day after Christmas break, but then the ankle just blew up, it was crazy. It got so big and so red. I was actually really scared. I had to go to the hospital right away to get some stronger antibiotics to keep it under control.

“The next couple days we had to see what was going on with the ankle. It didn’t get much better really, so we can to go in and clean it all out with surgery at the Royal Alexendra right away to get this over with.

“The knuckle was fine at that point. I just wanted to get this over with and play probably two or three weeks after the Christmas break. The surgery went pretty well and everything was fine. Two or three weeks after the surgery, it blew up once again. It got so red, and so big. There was a lot of swelling going on. I got really scared again. 

“I went to several doctors to see what’s going on. They all told me, ‘You have to have another surgery, and clean it all out again.’

“The second one was a little big bigger, obviously. They had to go in and take a little bit more out, graph new skin, and stitch it all up again.

“At that point, the skin is so fragile, it’s so thin, every time I’m in the skate, it basically just breaks and starts to bleed again. That was the biggest issue we had because, after late January, early February, I wanted to come back so bad because the guys had a really tough time, and they were losing a lot of games. It was so frustrating to be on the sidelines and watch a lot of games from home. 

“Every time I went on the ice, and skated by myself, the skin was not thick enough after the surgery. We just had to wait it out.  Every time I went out there, we waited one more week. I went on the ice, it broke. I just had to wait another week. I tried a different skate – all kinds of solutions, just to get the pressure away from the ankle, from the actual incision. The skin was so thin and so fragile. Every time I went on the ice. It was just bleeding once more. It came to a point where it wasn’t worth it to risk anything else, to have another third infection and another incision, and another rehab session. So we just took a decision, we took it one day at a time. If it’s not good enough, we just have to wait a couple more days.

“Unfortunately, it’s tough with infections. Right now, I just want to get this over with, and focus on the next season,” explained Klefbom.

We discussed much more and we will have that up on the site tomorrow.

The good news is there was no structural damage. Some speculated this was like Ryan Whitney, and that isn’t the case. Whitney suffered from “drop foot,” but Klefbom said if the Oilers were playing in two weeks he could play.

The other bonus for him was he was able to work out every day and he is in the best shape of his career, which is saying a lot considering he was always in great shape.

I will have more from Klefbom up tomorrow, but despite a frustrating season the good news is he expects no issues next year. He will be fitted for a special skate, with more padding to stop the rubbing, and he expects it to be a non-issue next season.