Connor Zary is, by his own admission, a miserable spectator.
He was reminded of that during a recent 15-game absence, even if his mood was boosted slightly by the realization that it could have been a whole lot worse.
Despite some initial fear that his knee injury could be a season-ender, Zary was back in action for Sunday’s showdown with the San Jose Sharks at the Saddledome, arriving at the rink with a wide grin rather than a grimace.
“When you’re not playing and you’re there watching, you get so frustrated,” said Zary, who wound up on the shelf for just shy of seven weeks. “You have no impact on the game. You maybe don’t fully understand what’s going on or what’s being said and you just miss all those little things about being in the room, especially after wins.
“You enjoy everything more when you’re in the lineup.”
This return is big news for the Flames.
With the acquisitions of Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost and now Zary’s all-clear, you could argue the Flames’ forward cast against the Sharks was stronger than it’s been at any other point this season.
If you go back to Jan. 7, when Zary was injured in that knee-on-knee collision with Anaheim Ducks defenceman Drew Helleson, the 23-year-old dynamo was sitting third on the squad in both goals and points.
They will be counting on him to provide a few clutch contributions during the wild-card chase.
“I just need to bring my same game,” said Zary, who was skating alongside Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman in a string of four practices this past week. “Obviously, coming off injury, you have to find it again and try to get it back as quick as you can. But I think just go out there and play. I know what I can do. I know how much I can create, especially on the offensive side of things. It’s important just to find my game early and play the way I can.”
It’s important too, albeit easier said than done, that Zary immediately puts the injury in his rearview mirror.
A tentative style doesn’t suit his game. He needs to be confident with the puck on his stick and must remain a threat to dance past a defenceman and drive toward the net, even if that’s exactly what he was trying when Helleson connected with his left knee.
“It’s just one of those things — I was going in, I lost the puck a little bit, I left myself wide and I got caught in my tracks,” Zary said. “It happens in hockey, and you can’t really shy away to go into those areas. You just have to be smarter with what you’re doing, how you’re attacking it and not putting yourself in vulnerable positions like that. But at the end of the day, you have to keep playing that way and attacking the middle. That’s what makes me successful as a player, so I can’t shy away from doing that.
“Just try to go full systems go,” he added. “I’ve talked to Husk (head coach Ryan Huska) a bit about it — just going out there and playing hockey and just kind of saying ‘screw it’ to everything else and letting the game come to me and play how I know I can play. So just put my head down and go work.”
Because working sure beats watching — and especially when a wild-card invite is within grasp.
Zary sniped one of the biggest goals of the season so far for the Flames, capping a dramatic opening-night comeback with the overtime winner in Vancouver. They need him to help clip the Canucks again, this time in the Western Conference standings.
“I think that’s something we can really push for and have fun with and really enjoy that moment,” Zary beamed. “It’s special for me. Last season, when we got to this time of year, or maybe a few weeks from now, we were starting to slip out. But now that we’re right in that race, I think every day is a push and every game matters. So it makes them a lot more fun and a lot more meaningful.
“A little more excitement, a little more on edge. And that makes you excited to play every single day.”