Perspective was all laid out in front of Kyle Okposo in less than a day, and suddenly hockey wasn’t so important anymore.
Back on Jan. 19, the Islanders’ forward was driving home from the Coliseum for a party, the belated birthday bash for his one-year-old daughter, Ellianna. Okposo had just helped the Islanders to a 7-4 win over the Flyers, and his team was rolling into the All-Star break, the best start in franchise history behind them.
But the 26-year-old Okposo knew something was wrong. He is extremely nearsighted, having worn glasses since he was seven years old and wearing contacts when he plays. After the game, he took his contacts out, and his vision was still blurred in his left eye. He called the eye doctor to set up an appointment for the following morning.
“I just knew something was going on,” Okposo said, “and I knew it probably wasn’t good.”
The doctor told him he had a detached retina, and that emergency surgery was necessary.
“It was immediate, or lose my eyesight,” Okposo remembered. “I wouldn’t be able to see.
“So it was definitely a scary thing. The doc told me that my vision wasn’t guaranteed to come back, so at that point, you start realizing what’s important. It wasn’t just hockey. It was about the rest of my life.”
The doctors went in and did the surgery, prying Okposo’s eye open, reattaching the retina, and putting something in place to stabilize it. Then they went into the other eye, and did some work there, as well.
“It was heading along the same path,” Okposo said.
On Tuesday night, six weeks later and after 22 games missed, he was back in the lineup.
The alternate captain’s “A” was on his home sweater as he took the ice against none other than the Rangers. It was the final regular-season matchup between the two generational rivals at the Coliseum, and it ended in a 2-1 win for the visiting Blueshirts. Okposo got into a shoving match with Marc Staal on his first shift, and got three shots on net in five attempts over 18:33.
He started on the third line with Nikolay Kulemin and Frans Nielsen, but finished the final 12 minutes of the third period in his most natural place — on the right wing of the top line, next to John Tavares.
“Timing off a little bit, but that’s expected,” coach Jack Capuano said of the performance. “He’s a leader for our team, and it’s good to see him out there.”
With the looming move to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center awaiting after this season, the Islanders (43-22-4) have found a way to stay atop the Metropolitan Division, going 12-7-3 in Okposo’s absence, still holding a one-point advantage over the second-place Rangers (41-17-7), who have four games in hand.
But for Okposo, this was not a target date. Even if the team was extremely tight-lipped about the nature of his injury — with some people within the organization citing player safety concerns going forward — Okposo said he is not worried about his eye, or how opponents may approach him.
“If I had concerns about that, I wouldn’t be playing,” he said. “So I’m going to be in the game, trying to throw a hit the first shift. I have no concerns about my eye.”
Which is not to say that he is now indestructible.
“There is always a risk that it can happen again,” he said, “just with my eyes being the way they are. Being very, very nearsighted, there is always a risk.”
There was no specific instance when Okposo noticed he was hurt, with him saying, “It could have happened anytime, you never really know, but it was probably a hit.”
Only about two weeks after the surgery, Okposo was back on the ice working out. He has been with the team for about a week, but Capuano was not about to rush and put him in danger of further hurting himself just to get him back in for one more game in March.
“There were a few things that he had to do to make sure he was ready,” Capuano said. “Things worked out for him. He’s been skating hard, and he’s ready to go and he’s excited. We can’t put him in a situation where he could re-injure it, and that’s what we wanted to make sure of.”
This has been a tumultuous time more for Okposo the human being rather than just Okposo the hockey player. But now he gets to reconnect the two, and he hopes it is a joyous reunion.
“You just want to come back and play well,” Okposo said. “I’m really looking forward to getting back and doing my thing and playing the game that I love.”