On Friday, Jani Hakanpää explained his decision to avoid going under the knife.
Earlier this week, general manager Jim Nill confirmed that defenseman Jani Hakanpää elected to forego offseason knee surgery to repair an injury that he apparently suffered during Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals against the Golden Knights.
Back in June, Nill indicated that Hakanpää would undergo a procedure to remedy the issue.
After multiple consultations with medical personnel, however, the 31-year-old Finnish blueliner changed his plans.
“When I left, the plan was to get in there and do a little something, but then we went back home. The plan was to talk with the doctor back home who was dealing with the knee before. He knows it the best because he’s the team doctor with the team I played with for four years in Finland and I had some similar things going on back then, so we figured he’s probably the guy that knows it the best,” explained Hakanpää, during Friday’s media availability at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park. “We took a look at the pictures, chatted with him, chatted with our doctors and with our training staff, and then decided to try to stay away from it as long as we can. We still have it in our back pocket if we need to, but hopefully we never have to do it.”
Hakanpää doesn’t believe the injury significantly affected his summer workouts.
It was basically status quo in that regard, and he feels “100 percent ready to go” for the season.
“There were little adjustments here and there just trying to limit the stress on it as much as we could, with a few tweaks here and there,” shared Hakanpää. “Other than that, just making sure all the range of motion is good, everything around it is in good shape, so little tweaks, but nothing crazy.”
The 6-foot-6, 225-pound rearguard registered career-highs in multiple categories last year, including goals (6), assists (10), points (16), games played (82), plus-minus (+18), blocked shots (128) and shots on goal (86).
He also added 224 hits, while averaging a personal-best 19:20 of ice time per game.