Hockey - Waiting Wears on a Defenseman

Parked next to the door to the Devils? practice rink in West Orange, N.J., Monday afternoon was a bus, its hatches open so players could toss in their luggage for the trip to Long Island. Richard Matvichuk would stay behind. He would shower, dress and head home.

?Seeing them leave obviously gets frustrating,? said Matvichuk, his head bowed.

Matvichuk, 34, a defenseman, has not played this season. He had an operation on his back last June to correct a pinched nerve that had left him almost unable to walk, let alone skate with fury or rub a forechecker into the boards.

Matvichuk has been able to practice with the team since November, but he has not been cleared to play. Although he is able to do everything that his teammates do in practice, his recovery has been slow. He said that full recovery from back surgery is difficult to predict.

?We?ll get him in before the end of the year, and he?ll play in a couple of games,? Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello said Tuesday.

The Devils have five games left in the regular season, the first tomorrow against the Philadelphia Flyers at Continental Arena. Four of their last five games will be at home, including the finale April 8 against the Islanders.

Matvichuk remains on the long-term-injury list. Lamoriello said the Devils wanted to make sure he was strong enough to play before he actually returned to the lineup. They fear that if he is reinjured, he could miss the playoffs.

His teammates say Matvichuk made quite a comeback simply to be able to practice. As the Devils won their last 11 regular-season games last season, then swept the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs before being eliminated by the Carolina Hurricanes, Matvichuk was in and out of the lineup.

His left foot had become numb over the course of the season, as if it were asleep. He found stairs all but impossible to climb. He could barely skate. Matvichuk managed to play in five of the last nine regular-season games and seven of the Devils? nine playoff games. He was a plus-five in the playoffs.

?I was kind of like a one-legged duck out there,? he said. ?At that point, the adrenaline and experience had to take over.?

Matvichuk, a 14-year veteran, said he felt better the minute he left the hospital in Los Angeles after having surgery, but that the length of his rehabilitation has been demoralizing at times.

?As a player, you want to play every game, every night,? he said. ?Obviously, the rehabilitation has taken a lot longer than I thought it was going to take. But now everything is back to normal.?

Matvichuk said doctors shaved a piece of bone from one of his vertebra to alleviate the pressure on the nerve. But once the nerve is damaged, he said, it is not known if it will fully recover. He did not know what to expect.

?You can only get as strong as you can,? he said.

Before he skated for the first time at the end of October, Matvichuk had worked out every day for two months. Some of those days began at dawn, and Matvichuk would be dressed and gone before the rest of the team reported.

?We?ve had some early days,? he said. ?You can?t bother the regulars.?

He is close to returning now. During a drill Monday, wearing a black jersey and a white helmet, he teamed with Colin White, and then with Brian Rafalski, to shadow forecheckers and whisk the puck out of his own zone. The pace was fast.

?To remain as optimistic and as positive as he has is a credit to his personality,? Devils Coach Claude Julien said.

Matvichuk is valued for more than being able to blunt an opponent?s rush. Though out of the lineup, Matvichuk is funny, upbeat and vocal. His teammates admired him for his tenacity and camaraderie long before he got hurt.

?He?s helpful, and he knows the game,? said defenseman Brad Lukowich, who was also a teammate of Matvichuk?s in Dallas.

The loss of Matvichuk has been minimized because the Devils? defensemen, and goaltender Martin Brodeur behind them, have largely been effective at slowing other teams. The Devils are in second in the Eastern Conference and have not needed to make a late push, as they did last season.

But the playoffs, which start in less than two weeks, might as well be a different season. Matvichuk has been to the mountaintop. He helped Dallas win the Stanley Cup in 1999, when the Stars played a punishing, stifling style, not unlike the Devils this year.

?He?s been in the playoffs, he?s won a Cup, he brings a physical presence and he?s a veteran,? White said. ?All of those things are huge, especially come playoff time.?

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