From today’s Philadelphia Daily News:
After sitting out for a game and a practice over the last week, Ville Leino’s lower-body condition was starting to raise red flags. A team source told the Daily News that Leino is struggling with an injury to his surgically repaired hip; he was sustained on Feb. 15 in Tampa Bay.
[…]
The source said Leino on Monday had an injection of synvisc, a fluid that acts as a lubrication to the hip joint, which caused him to miss practice.
This is disconcerting, to say the least. Leino’s obviously a vital part of the team and if an injury he needed surgery on in the past is truly bugging him, there’s plenty of reason to be concerned.
It was a minor issue over the summer when Leino had the surgery, and it’s a pretty common procedure, too. Braydon Coburn went through it two summers ago, in fact. Still, when it recurs like this, it’s hard not to worry.
You also can’t help but think what this says about his contract negotiations. Just raising questions here and nothing more, but you wonder how long this has been bugging him, right? And say it’s been bugging him for a month… has that impacted the negotiations at all?
We’ll likely never know if that’s the case, so this is really just thinking out loud, but we have reason to be concerned, I think.
