from Gregg Krupa of the Detroit News,

After surgery to remove part of a disc rubbing on a nerve, he skated for the first time in Bloomfield Hills. On the first crossover to the left, Zetterberg said, when he attempted to push off with a skate, he felt nothing and went down.

He laughed at his memory of preparing to give the overworked Red Wings equipment manager Paul Boyer a hard time for bad skate sharpening.

But it was not the blade.

“That’s when we noticed the nerve that had shut down the small muscle down there, and that it couldn’t control the ankle,” Zetterberg said.

He said he played two 2014 playoff games against the Bruins with the ankle taped to prevent almost any movement. The Wings lost the series, 4-1.

“I played,” he said. “But I could not skate.

“At least we knew what to work on then.”

The problem, sometimes called "foot drop," occurs in non-athletes, too.

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