March 23, 2015
News/views: Dupuis return ruled out 35
Fans hold up a sign for Pascal Dupuis at Consol Energy Center in late November. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
News: Pascal Dupuis won’t rejoin the Penguins at any point this season, including the Stanley Cup playoffs, Jim Rutherford just announced on the team’s site.
Dupuis has been out since Nov. 19 because of a blood clot, and the chance that he’d return this season — after being told to take blood thinners for six months — had been slim.
“Based on the doctor’s report, I don’t believe we’ll see Pascal this year, and that’s a big loss,” Rutherford said. “He’s not going to be cleared to play until June.”
In the same statement, Rutherford added, “I do feel very confident he’ll return to the team next year.”
Views: Cling to that last line if you’re a fan of Dupuis the player and the person.
This has driven him nuts. I can tell you that unequivocally. We sat together in the press box down in Washington two weeks ago, and he looked like he’d rather have been in Guantanamo. He’ll be 36 in April, but he’s got the energy, the passion of a kid lacing up his first pair of skates on Christmas morning, and not being on the rink, similarly, is just about the worst punishment one could assign.
So take the good with the bad, even if he won’t. At some point, he’ll be back, and he’ll have returned under much safer circumstances than those when we last saw him.
He’s a good, good man. One of the best. And he got very lucky here.
