At the not so young age of 37 and on the heels of a significant back surgery, Ottawa Senators defenceman Chris Phillips has suffered another setback.
According to a report in the Ottawa Sun, Phillips has suffered a cracked disc in his back. It’s an injury that will certainly keep Phillips out for the duration of training camp and has some people around the team talking retirement for the franchise’s all time leader in games played.
The rumours of Phillips starting the season on the LTIR had been there all season but up until about a month ago, it sounded like Phillips was actually progressing pretty well in his rehab from back surgery. Obviously that all changed in the last couple weeks. Phillips isn’t entirely sure how he injured it but listening to him talk about it, it’s pretty clearly a frustrating injury.
The absolute earliest Phillips could return is November and even that seem optimistic at this point.
Phillips being sidelined certainly opens the door for a guy like Chris Wideman to make the team out of training camp. He already had a decent shot but now with that extra roster spot open, there’s a pretty clear opening on the roster. And now the Senators are just one more injury away from someone like Mikael Wikstrand of Frederick Claesson getting a look as well.
It’s tough to tell exactly where Chris Phillips will go from here.
Based on his comments, he’s going to do everything he can to get back to 100% but it seems pretty much impossible to put a timeline on it at this point.
Phillips isn’t ready to talk retirement just yet but it’s clearly a possibility after this significant setback.
