Josh Norris
Hockey

Senators’ Norris Out For Season; Will Have Surgery On Shoulder

January 23, 2023
Jack Richardson

   On Monday morning, Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion announced that forward Josh Norris will undergo season-ending surgery on his left shoulder.

   Norris returned to the lineup for just 3 games after missing 38 with an injury to the same shoulder. The original diagnosis determined that Norris would have season-ending surgery when the injury occurred in October, but after consulting with multiple specialists, Norris elected to rehab his shoulder for a chance to return this season.

   Here is where Norris appeared to tweak his shoulder:

   The whole process behind Norris’ injury was incredibly vague. When the original diagnosis indicated that he’d miss the entire season, he elected to see five doctors and two shoulder specialists about the best route for recovery. 

   When he met with a specialist that said rehabilitation was feasible, Norris chose that route. While the team doctors do have the final say in the matter, it seemed like they allowed Norris to have autonomy over whether or not he would return this season.

   While that logic may work in principle, Josh Norris isn’t a doctor, and sometimes medical experts need to protect athletes from themselves. He was obviously going to do whatever he could to get back into the lineup, and the Senators’ medical staff should have been aware of that.

   This is without mentioning the Shane Pinto injury situation last season, which had a similar result with Pinto prematurely returning before re-aggravating the injury and ultimately missing the rest of the year. 

   At the time, Head Coach D.J. Smith was also coy about updates regarding Pinto’s recovery.

   When Norris was nearing a return this season, Smith said he wouldn’t be taking faceoffs. That was a massive red flag that should have indicated Norris wasn’t 100% healthy and shouldn’t have been inserted into the lineup.

   This news leaves Sens fans with more questions than answers. At this point it’s purely speculation, but the breadcrumbs don’t seem to indicate that Norris’ rehab went according to plan.

   He was practicing and travelling with the team for roughly 3 weeks prior to being cleared to play, a very rare occurrence in the NHL. Was he targeting an earlier date? Or did his specific injury require a much different rehab process in terms of when he could take contact again?

   The obscure nature of his recovery process is mirrored by Pinto’s cloudy recovery last season. How does something like this happen twice to the same team in back-to-back seasons? 

   It could be nothing more than a fluke occurrence that the Senators’ medical staff was uncertain how to handle. But the situation has an eerily similar tone to comments made by a former Senator.

   On November 10th, Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Matt Murray spoke with the press as he was nearing a return from a minor injury. He had this to say about the Leafs’ medical staff: 

   “That’s why we do things right in the rehab process. Like I said, we have the best of the best staff here, and they put us in a great spot to heal and we do things properly here.” 

   Murray spent a good chunk of his time in Ottawa with the medical staff as he was limited to just 47 starts in two seasons with the Senators. At the time many chalked this up to sour grapes. Taking subtle shots at your former team is one thing, but targeting their medical staff is another.

   But given the recent situation involving Norris, and with the way Pinto was handled last season, is there more going on behind the scenes than perhaps the team would like outsiders to know?

   Medical situations are handled behind closed doors in the NHL, so fans naturally assume that all 32 teams operate within the same guidelines. However, the recent situation involving Tanner Pearson in Vancouver suggests that sometimes the medical operations in the NHL aren’t as cut and dry as advertised.

   While I’d stop short of saying there’s any kind of conspiracy going on behind the scenes of the Canadian Tire Centre, the fact that two similar situations have taken place in the span of 15 months is extremely concerning. And Murray’s comments only add fuel to that fire.

With most of the fanbase beginning to turn on DJ Smith, and Pierre Dorion’s “Hot Pierre Summer” a distant memory, perhaps the wholesale changes many expect to occur once new ownership is in place will extend beyond just the hockey ops department in the Nation’s Capital.

-Jack Richardson

Twitter: @jackrichrdson

Photo: Lengerke. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.