from Jeremy P. Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
Without the aid of seeing him until training camp in September, Blues fans must hope that Bouwmeester, 31, who has played 900-plus games in the NHL, is providing an accurate assessment when he says a summer of rest and regrouping will allow him to bounce back in 2015-16.
The soft-spoken defenseman never acknowledged the extent of the groin injury last season. Reached back home in Canada on Tuesday, he tiptoed the line of being truthful and not making excuses for a disappointing season, but he did discuss the difficulty the injury caused.
“The whole year was not what I wanted it to be,” Bouwmeester said. “But at the same time, I can kind of break it down and look at it a little differently. Last year, if I go back and look at it, the start of the year was weird. I was feeling good and playing OK and I think I got one point in the first 20 games — nothing was happening. Then with the injury ...”
On Nov. 22, Bouwmeester left a 3-2 victory over Ottawa late in the game when he felt a pop in his groin.
“Right when it happened, you’re saying, ‘OK, I’ve never felt this before ... it doesn’t feel good,’” Bouwmeester remembered. “It was something that was totally foreign.”
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