The New York Islanders have some time off to decompress and get ready for next season, but it looks like Cal Clutterbuck will have a summer full of rehab. Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post tweets that Clutterbuck is dealing with a “plethora of things wrong” in his back, and is talking to doctors about surgery. Arthur Staple of The Athletic tweets that Clutterbuck has a stress fracture, two slipped disks and two rotated vertebrae. Cyrgalis notes that it could be four to six weeks, or four to six months depending on the procedure.
Clutterbuck played in three of the Islanders’ games against the Carolina Hurricanes and all four in their first-round sweep of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The physical veteran forward was held without a single point in the playoffs, but still collected 33 hits over the seven contests. Even without much offensive production he is an important part of the Islanders line up, even regularly starting the game for head coach Barry Trotz.
The 31-year old forward still has three years remaining on his current contract but could be in jeopardy of missing the beginning of the season if he does face the six month recovery timeline. The Islanders have plenty of other forwards to worry about over the summer as they try to re-sign Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and Jordan Eberle, but will hope Clutterbuck can find his way back to the ice quickly.
Best of luck to him. Trooper for playing through that. Couldn’t be easy.