March 19 was precisely 18 days ago. In less than three weeks, Valtteri Filppula was able to recover from his upper body injury and return to the New York Islanders just in time for the final game of the regular season.
After practicing for the last few days, we began to get optimistic that maybe Filppula would be ready for the start of the playoffs. That still would be considered early from that original timetable set when the injury happened.
Today, in a press conference, Barry Trotz confirmed that Filppula is good to go tonight in Washington.