Former Canadiens captain Shea Weber is excited to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but wishes he was still playing instead.
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If he could turn back time to the start of the 2017-18 NHL season and make a different decision, the 39-year-old might still be playing with the Canadiens.
Weber fractured his left foot when he was hit by a shot during the first game of the 2017-18 season in Buffalo. He kept playing for 15 games after that before missing one game with an unrelated injury. Weber then played four more games on the fractured foot before missing six games while it was put in a walking boot in the hope it would heal. After the boot came off, Weber played six more games before being shut down after the Canadiens lost 3-0 to the Senators in Ottawa in the outdoor NHL 100 Classic on Dec. 16. Weber logged 22:58 of ice time in that game.
The next month, after an MRI, it was discovered by a doctor recommended by the NHLPA that by playing on the broken foot Weber had damaged two tendons in his left ankle that would require surgery. After the surgery on his foot, Weber went in for what was supposed to be minor surgery on his right knee, but doctors discovered he had a torn meniscus. He ended up missing the last 56 games of the 2017-18 season and the first 24 games of the 2018-19 season.
The injuries just kept piling up for Weber after that.
When the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup final in 2021 before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Weber played with a torn UCL in his thumb, a torn ankle tendon, a meniscus ligament injury in his knee, and then he tore his groin in the semifinal series against the Vegas Golden Knights. Weber played in all 22 playoff games that season and averaged 25:13 of ice time.
Remarkable.
The Canadiens honoured Weber before Saturday night’s 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was inducted into the Ring of Honour at the Bell Centre, joining the other Canadiens Hall of Famers.
Weber never really spoke about the pain he played through during the 2021 playoff run until he met with the media in Toronto ahead of his Hall of Fame induction last Monday night in Toronto. He did so reluctantly.
“That was a tough one for me because I obviously said all that stuff last week, and it was like the last thing I want is for people to feel bad for me,” Weber said when he met with the media before Saturday’s game. “I didn’t say that because I want you guys to feel bad for me playing through all that. I was kind of irritated at the question again and kind of went through all the things I had.”
All those things started with that broken foot.
In hindsight, does Weber wish he had immediately taken time off to let the foot heal back in 2017?
“That’s one thing that I guess we’ll never know, right?” he said. “We got that checked out sooner, maybe you take your two weeks off, three weeks off there and then it’s not six months, it’s not the next year, and then hopefully I could still be playing now. But that’s a tough one. … Being in it and wanting to play. It’s one of those things. In hindsight, it probably would have been a lot smarter just to take two weeks off. But from what we got in the X-ray at the rink, it showed nothing. So I just said let’s deal with it, I guess.”
Weber’s playing career came to an end after that 2021 playoff run because of all the injuries, and the Canadiens traded his contract to the Vegas Golden Knights in the summer of 2022. A year later, his contract was traded to the Arizona Coyotes (now the Utah Hockey Club). There is still one more season after this left on Weber’s 14-year, US$110-million contract, which has an annual salary-cap hit of US$7.857 million. However, he is only earning US$1 million this season and next season on the heavily front-loaded deal while being on long-term injured reserve, meaning his contract doesn’t count against Utah’s salary cap.
Weber would like to stay in hockey in player development after his contract expires and said he has had some talks with the Utah team, adding nothing is imminent. He misses playing hockey, but with three young children is keeping busy coaching youth teams back home in Kelowna, B.C.
“I miss being on the ice,” he said. “I could skate on the ice every day just messing around.”
Weber’s body still feels the pain of his 16 seasons in the NHL, but he’s not complaining.
“Hockey has given me so much to be grateful for,” he said. “I laid it all out. … I did whatever it took, especially during that (2021 playoff) run because we were so close and it was getting to that point where you’re willing to literally not be able to walk to help the team.”