Defender Alex Pietrangelo, who has been missing since November 26 with family reasons, returned to action on Saturday and revealed the circumstances of his absence.
• Also read: Fourth win in a row: another win for the Senators
• Also read: Hockey Canada officially announces its new Board of Directors
• Also read: A “Patrice Bergeron Day” in Massachusetts
The Ontarian meets the media after the Vegas Golden Knights’ morning practice, hours before their game against the New York Islanders.
He emotionally explained that his four-year-old daughter had been hospitalized. Pietrangelo initially thought she had the flu, but her condition worsened when a lesion formed in her brain.
Her daughter subsequently lost all of her motor skills and had to be tube-fed at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas.
“She couldn’t even open her eyes for the first five days,” Pietrangelo said, according to the Knights’ Twitter account. It involves a lot of testing and analysis to try to find the problem. We received treatment and a week later the lesion was gone. Without saying it was a surprise, it progressed faster than the original diagnosis.
Doctors expect her to make a full recovery. She came home midweek and quickly started walking again.
“I’m happy with his progress. We still have months and months of rehabilitation to get her back to where she was before. As a family we have to work hard. My training times should be a little more flexible. She’s a resilient young girl,” said Pietrangelo, who struggled to hold back tears during this interview.
The defender had made an excellent start to the season before leaving the squad in that sad chapter. He has three goals and 21 points in 24 games.
In his career, the former St. Louis Blues scored 132 goals and 538 points in 902 games.