It wasn’t a concussion, which doesn’t mean there weren’t days when it felt like one.
As Mika Zibanejad explained to The Post, the month the Rangers’ top-line center missed due to an ambiguous “upper-body injury” was because of a neck ailment — which is what coach David Quinn had said all along. When Zibanejad was plastered on a reverse hit from the Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron on Oct. 27, he tweaked something in his neck that led to pain, discomfort and the inability to play.
Yet in a league ripe with misleading injury information, the speculation was inevitable. The 26-year-old Zibanejad has had at least five concussions in his career, including one in November 2017 that sidelined him for three weeks. He also has grown up suffering from migraines, which came and went during the recovery period.
Add that to the interconnectedness between the nerves in the neck and the brain, and the ambiguity surrounding this particular injury was not subterfuge on the part of him or the team, but rather avoiding an unnecessary detailing of an injury that was touchy, that varied from day-to-day and was never something that they worried was going to be long-term.
Instead, Zibanejad returned for the Thanksgiving Eve game against the Hurricanes and picked up right where he left off — putting up two goals and an assist in the three games prior to Monday night’s Garden match against the Golden Knights.
“I think in general, we did everything right in the steps taken, the steps being back,” Zibanejad said Monday morning. “I think the little things we did on the ice and how we progressed over this one, I think gave me a little more confidence. We came back, haven’t felt anything, even though I’ve taken some hard hits and stuff. Other than that, it’s been good.
“A little bit more alert, I guess, in some scenarios. But I’m just trying to go and play my game, play like I did before. Usually when you’re hesitant at first, it takes you a little longer to get into it. But also the risk of getting injured again — in some other way, maybe — is a lot higher. It’s been good so far.”
Zibanejad had been candid in the past about how hard it was to return from a concussion and play the same high-flying, aggressive style that has made him a legit top-line pivot. The recovery is so different from when he broke his leg three years ago on a crash into the backboards during overtime. Then, he knew what to expect on a daily basis.
“This one specifically, the hardest part was just to take it day-by-day and not knowing,” he said. “I broke my leg three years ago, and you knew it was six-to-eight weeks, no questions asked, really. You can focus on getting back.
“It’s hard with these kinds of injuries when you’re so uncertain.”
Quinn had made it clear how much deeper his lineup looks with Zibanejad, and he hardly hesitated to get him involved, playing him 24:08 in his second game back in Boston on Friday. It also helped that Zibanejad returned to a team that was playing significantly better than it was when he left. The Rangers entered Monday having gone 4-0-1 in their previous five and 8-3-2 over their previous 13.
“One thing that really jumps out at me is his conditioning — this guy’s got an iron lung,” Quinn said. “His level of energy doesn’t drop at all. He’s in fabulous shape, and not many guys can skate with him in this league.”
Zibanejad has become one of the key leaders on this young team, in the third year of his bargain five-year, $26.75 million deal with an annual salary-cap hit of $5.35 million. So it was a relief for him and the organization to know that the injury wasn’t quite as serious as it could have been and that he was able to return from this neck issue and hardly miss a beat.
“Obviously I wanted to play all those 13 games. But this happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s out of your control,” Zibanejad said. “Just have to deal with it in a positive way, even if some days are darker than others. But all good.”