Pap Article on Mattias Ohlund

Ohlund hush hush on injury

Thursday, July 05, 2007

CREDIT: Vancouver Sun/Mark Van Manen Canuck Mattias Ohlund.

VANCOUVER - In the often secretive world of sports injuries, Mattias Ohlund was a prince at keeping his ailment private.

The Vancouver Canucks defenceman, who had hernia surgery on May 28, played with the problem "off and on" for the last few seasons before finally going under the knife.

Even one of his most celebrated teammates didn't know Ohlund had a health issue.

"I was surprised to hear Ohlund got operated on after the season," Roberto Luongo said. "What was it? A sports hernia? I didn't even know he was hurt. That shows you how tough he is."

Ohlund, modest to a fault, explained Wednesday in an interview from Sweden that his condition wasn't a dire one and didn't require treatment on a regular basis.

The burly blue-liner appeared in 77 regular-season games and 12 more in the playoffs. He was one of the Canucks' more productive skaters in the post-season with seven points, tying for the team lead with Trevor Linden.

"The injury wasn't a big deal," Ohlund insisted. "It was bugging me at times, it was more of an achy feeling, but it didn't really bother me in games once I got warmed up. I could have probably gone on for another year, but we thought it was a good time now to get it done and get it over with."

After two post-op weeks of idleness, Ohlund began exercising again and Wednesday claimed to be capable of full workouts. The recovery period for this type of surgery - Matt Cooke and Brendan Morrison had similar procedures - is four-to-six weeks.

"The last couple of weeks I've been feeling fine and I'm definitely back to 100 per cent now," said Ohlund, Vancouver's first pick in the 1994 entry draft. "My surgery was five weeks ago on Monday and they told me by six weeks I should be back to normal again."

Like many others, Ohlund has been keenly following the free-agent frenzy on the Internet. He isn't surprised the Canucks haven't signed a marquee name and isn't sure they need one after the many moves of a year ago.

So far, the Canucks have added only backup goalie Curtis Sanford plus depth forwards Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister to their NHL roster.

"We made a lot of changes last year so we're not going to see that again this summer," said Ohlund. "Obviously we have something good going and, hopefully, we can build on what we started last year and become an even better hockey team.

"We feel like we have players, including myself, who can still play better and improve."

Ohlund plans to return from Sweden in mid-August and begin skating at that time.