Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Ryan Callahan Goes On LTIR

06/20/2019 at 5:44pm EDT

TAMPA BAY - The Tampa Bay Lightning announced forward Ryan Callahan will be placed on long-term injury reserve with degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine, vice president and general manager Julien BriseBois announced today.

Callahan, 34, skated in 52 games with the Lightning during the 2018-19 season, collecting seven goals and 17 points to go along with 14 penalty minutes. The Rochester, New York native has appeared in 757 career NHL games with the Bolts and New York Rangers, recording 186 goals and 386 points.

via Caley Chelios tweet,

BriseBois, "He’s such a proud competitor such a fierce competitor. I know he was planning to not only play out this contract, but sign another contract after that. We had multiple conversations in the second half of the season about his future so that was very sad news for him."

added 6:00pm, Callahan spoke with Btyan Burns of th Lightning website,

Has your back been bothering you for a while or is this something that's popped up since the season ended?
Callahan: "I kind of knew. I've been dealing with some back issues for a couple years now, this year being the worst that it's ever been, obviously missing some games with it, leaving some games with it. I've kind of been battling it all year. Didn't know to what extent and after the season I went and saw a couple specialists and after talking to them, it wasn't easy to hear what they thought was going on and most likely won't be able to play. It was definitely tough to hear that."

What exactly is your injury? Is it something doctors has been able to pinpoint?
Callahan: "Yeah, it's a lower-back injury. It's a degenerative disc disease is what I have, and unfortunately there doesn't even seem to be anything they can do immediately to fix the problem. And that's never easy to hear when you're speaking to a couple doctors and all of them agree on the same thing. Just knowing what I went through this year with the pain of it, dealing with it day to day, kind of not knowing how it was going to react in games, I wouldn't be able to go through another year like that without having something done to it."

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About Kukla's Korner Hockey

Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.

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