After a solid rookie season in 2015-16 that saw him score 29 points in 73 games, Mattias Janmark didn’t even get a chance to suffer through a potential “sophomore slump”. Instead, the Dallas Stars forward was out the entire 2016-17 season with osteochondritis dissecans, “a joint disorder where bone underneath the cartilage of a joint dies due to lack of blood flow”.
To put that into layman’s terms, there were serious doubts about whether Janmark would ever be able to get back on the ice.
“It was a freakish injury, and I think the fact you’re unsure if you’re going to play again is more fearful than anything,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said.