stfrank
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From Russo on The Athletic:
Exclusive: Alex Stalock shares details of heart condition, excitement about joining Oilers
By Michael Russo 16m ago
LAS VEGAS — The business of pro sports can be brutal sometimes.
A year ago, Alex Stalock was in the midst of a six-win-in-eight-start stretch after assuming the No. 1 reins from longtime starter Devan Dubnyk.
Then, the pandemic struck and halted Stalock’s career year until the South St. Paul native started all four games for the Wild in the August playoffs.
Coming off a 20-win season, Stalock was expected to enter this season as new No. 1 Cam Talbot’s backup. That was until an upper-body issue popped up out of nowhere, turned Stalock’s life upside down and caused him to miss all of training camp and the first six weeks of the season.
Kaapo Kahkonen, expected to start the season on the taxi squad or minors, was unexpectedly thrust into Stalock’s spot. Remember, the Wild maintained last offseason that the reigning AHL Goalie of the Year still needed more time to play games and develop in the minors. But the young rookie would end up backstopping Minnesota to eight of its 12 wins this season, putting together the type of start that on Monday caused Stalock’s time playing for his hometown team to come to an abrupt end.
One day after the Wild placed Stalock on waivers with the hope of sneaking him through to Iowa, the Edmonton Oilers decided otherwise and plucked the talkative, athletic, solid puckhandling and, frankly, playmaking goalie right out from under them.
As shocked and disappointed as he was by the end of his time in Minnesota, Stalock said Monday during an exclusive interview with The Athletic that he can’t wait to fly to Edmonton on Tuesday.
“I want to get up there as soon as I can so I can get going,” Stalock, 33, said. “The fact that they claimed you understanding that you still have to go through a 14-day (government-mandated) quarantine adds a little extra that they wanted ya. I got real close to (Oilers forward Tyler Ennis) here in Minnesota and he tells me I’ll love it there. I can’t wait to see (Connor) McDavid up close. Enzo’s like, ‘Wait ‘til you watch this guy practice every day. He practices the way he plays,’ which is absurd. So it’ll be fun.”
To be respectful of Stalock’s privacy during what was a very hard time for the veteran goaltender, the Wild have kept Stalock’s medical condition on the hush-hush and labeled it an upper-body injury.
What’s frightening is the upper-body “injury” was to his heart, Stalock revealed publicly for the first Monday to The Athletic.
In November, Stalock was stunned when he was diagnosed with myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart muscle — after testing positive for COVID-19. The risk with myocarditis is it can lead to cardiac arrest or sudden death, especially if an athlete gets his or her heart rate up.
On Nov. 19, Stalock was tested for the coronavirus in order to get cleared to officially enter the Wild’s TRIA Rink practice facility in order to get ready for the upcoming hockey season. The next day, at 3 o’clock, he was driving to his friend’s cabin with his wife and three children when the Wild team doctor called to tell him he tested positive for the virus. Stalock’s wife, Felicia, immediately put a mask on herself and their children, and the family turned around to return to the Twin Cities.
Still, Stalock didn’t believe he had the virus. He had no symptoms and maintains he still never had a single symptom from having the virus.
In fact, after returning to the Twin Cities, Stalock said he had multiple negative tests and never once had another positive test.
He thought it had to be a false positive and asked to get clearance to the Wild’s practice facility.
But following NHL protocol, doctors told him he first needed to go through a cardiac screening even though he was symptom-free.
Stalock took an EKG and echocardiogram figuring it was just a formality and, bluntly, a waste of time. But doctors immediately noticed an abnormality and ordered an MRI to get a better look at his heart.
“When they got a better picture, sure enough, they said, ‘You have myocarditis — a swelling or edema in your heart,’ and you can’t do anything for the next six weeks,” Stalock said. “It was just crazy. It was right at the time where they were finding this in a lot of athletes after having COVID, especially in college football.
“Those first couple weeks were scary. You go on the internet and read stuff and you’re like, ‘Holy shit.’ I was completely asymptomatic, but they think because I had no symptoms and had it in my system that because it was right at the time where we were ramping things up with skating and working out and ramping up for the season that my heart was working and working and working and started to get stressed and swell because of the virus in my system. I mean, that’s pretty scary. We have two kids and just had a newborn baby and then you find out this news, so there was a lot going on there for a couple weeks.
“It was mentally draining and very frustrating. Every doctor you talk to, they’re like, ‘This is so new, we don’t know what can happen.’ And you’re like, ‘Well, that doesn’t help.’”
Stalock didn’t know if his life was in peril or if his career was in jeopardy.
He abided by doctors’ orders and did nothing fitness-wise for several weeks. In mid-January, he flew to Boston, saw a specialist and was given the green light to begin working out and slowly get his heart rate back up. By the time he was really expecting to ramp things up, last month’s Wild COVID-19 outbreak occurred, which delayed things for him another couple weeks. But, in the past couple weeks, Stalock has started to get on the ice and last week even backstopped the taxi squad for a practice.
“Now that it’s cleared up and knowing that this was something that potentially should go away with rest and letting your heart come back and not stressing it, that was good news last month and helped mentally,” Stalock said. “But it is crazy that, ‘Holy cow, this is how your career ends in Minnesota.’ You just wish it would have ended differently, but it’s just business. I’m just glad I’m healthy again and have an opportunity to go play in Edmonton.”
Stalock is the second Wild player to suffer from complications from having COVID-19. Like Stalock, first-round pick Marco Rossi failed his cardiac screening after the world junior championships and similarly was told he can do nothing for six weeks. He’s currently back in his native Austria and will soon return to Minnesota to get reexamined by Wild doctors and specialists.
Stalock is very disappointed by the way his Wild career ended.
He figured the Wild would put him on waivers at some point in order to get to the taxi squad or Iowa, but he was under the impression they would first send him to Iowa on a conditioning stint.
“I was completely 100 percent in with going down to Iowa on a conditioning stint,” Stalock said. “I’ve played in Iowa before. I’m comfortable with the city, going to work with the young guys. Heck, it would have been fun being a veteran down there and hanging out with those young guys, it gives you some life. I was looking forward to it, getting some games in again and feeling good and getting some confidence. It went from that to all of a sudden … waivers.
“I just wasn’t expecting it this early. That’s just the business, I guess.”
Stalock reiterated that he understood that he’d likely end up on waivers at some point.
“Look, I get it, with the way the team is going (winning six in a row) and the way the goalies are playing right now, I understand that completely that I’d probably have to come back up from Iowa and I would start by being the third guy and be ready to go at any point if there’s an injury or something was going on. But the waivers thing was a shock to me to happen this early.”
It sure feels like the Wild were trying to slide him through with the hope that teams in need of immediate help wouldn’t take a goalie that’s not immediately ready to play. The Oilers obviously didn’t care. They’re looking for depth beyond Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith, and this season have already lost third goalie Anton Forsberg on waivers, then claimed Troy Grosenick from the L.A. Kings only to lose him on waivers back to the Kings a few days later.
“I’m not far,” Stalock insisted. “Everybody says you haven’t played in six months, you haven’t played in whatever. Everybody that started the season this year, they didn’t play for (roughly) the same amount of time. Guys that didn’t make playoffs last year hadn’t played for 10 months. Were they ready to play? You know what I mean? Is he ready? Is he ready? You could ask that about everybody at the beginning of the season. I’ll be ready.”
Stalock, one of the most popular teammates in Wild history, will surely be missed in that dressing room.
“As a player, the way he competed on the ice and the way he worked on his game was awesome to see,” said Zach Parise. “But I think what we’re all going to miss is he’s such a good guy and a great teammate. He’s a funny guy. Just a good person to be around. We lose a guy like that, the guys are pretty sad about it.
“To lose him on the waiver wire, to lose a friend and a teammate like that, it’s never fun. … Hopefully he’s going to get a chance to play and play as well as he did for us down the stretch and in the playoffs last year. Hopefully he’ll get the opportunity to show that. It’s unfortunate the way it all shook out here just with how good of a person he is.”
From a Wild perspective, the Stalock departure means Kahkonen’s here to stay. The rookie Kahkonen and veteran Talbot have helped the Wild post a .916 save percentage, fifth-best in the NHL. It does thin out their depth in goal with Andrew Hammond on the taxi squad and Dereck Baribeau and Hunter Jones in the minors.
According to PuckPedia, by freeing an extra $467,000 in cap space by losing Stalock, the Wild now have $1.1 million of projected cap space. That space could accommodate $1.8 million in player cap hits today and $4.6 million at the April 12 trade deadline.
In four seasons with the Wild, Stalock went 37-30-11 with a .908 save percentage, 2.77 goals-against average and five shutouts.
“When (former GM) Chuck (Fletcher) first called in that summer (of 2016) after a down season where I’m in San Jose, get dealt to Toronto, and things obviously didn’t go great in Toronto, you don’t have a summer of not knowing what’s gonna happen because Chuck took a chance. I still to this day remember that phone call I had with Chuck Fletcher and how straightforward he was with me, what he thought of me as a person, as a player, what he envisioned could happen here in Minnesota for me.
“And he stuck to his word and I did my part and worked my ass off and I got a chance and made the most of it. Anytime you can win in front of Wild fans and in front of your family, that’s very special. Who knows what could happen in the future? Who knows in this game, right? But, I’m an Oiler now, and I can’t wait to get started.
“But it was an honor that I got to play for my hometown team.”
Stalock had the same heart issue as Rossi.....some pretty scary stuff.
I wish him well and hope he stays healthy from here on out.
< Message edited by stfrank -- 3/1/2021 5:54:58 PM >
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