The season hasn't even started yet and it already seems like the Columbus Blue Jackets are falling apart.
In the wake of their combative and ongoing contract impasse with RFA Ryan Johansen comes news that Nathan Horton, one of the players the team was looking to for help filling the void left by Johansen's absence, is having health issues.
Even worse, they seem to be health issues of the "degenerative" variety, meaning that they'll only continue to worsen the longer his career goes on.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that general manager Jarmo Kekalainen used the word "degenerative" to describe Horton's back condition. Horton has yet to skate so far in training camp.
Kekalainen tried to throw some cold water on the notion that this was a particularly disastrous diagnosis by claiming that the issue is one "that generally plagues almost everyone who has played hockey."
I suppose that brightens the news.
Kekalainen claims that the team believes Horton's injury can be "remedied by a continued course of core strengthening."
"Everybody is different, obviously, because there is pain involved and all kinds of things involved with that," Kekalainen said. "I think Nathan Horton is probably more frustrated than anybody right now as far as trying to find a way to get stronger and get back to being able to play again.
"It's about getting stronger and managing the pain by getting stronger in the core. Then your back gets stronger and the pain will go away. (He) is the only person that really knows where he is at and how much pain there is involved. It's impossible for anybody else to know what he is going through right now. He is suffering."
Suffering?
Doesn't sound like Horton, who has barely played for Columbus since signing a big money free agent deal last summer due to shoulder and abdomen injuries, is all that close to a return to the ice.
He did perform well after debuting in January, but it was only April before he was sidelined again with the abdominal issue.
The Blue Jacket's scoring depth is about to be seriously tested.
They weren't exactly deep to begin with, and with Horton ailing and Johansen absent, the team has a tough road to start the season.
