The former first-round pick signed a one-year contract in July after setting career highs in the minors.
How Tyler Boucher has kept his sanity through the years of unrelenting injuries and soul-crushing setbacks, only he knows.
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Between a torn labrum, a separate upper-body ailment, multiple knee injuries, a groin problem and a prolonged bout with COVID-19, the Ottawa Senators’ 10th overall selection in the 2021 NHL Draft hasn’t played a full season of hockey since he was in high school.
The rotten luck, he admits, has thoroughly tested his character.
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“I’ve looked at it from every angle. I’ve thought about everything,” Boucher told the Ottawa Citizen in a phone interview Wednesday. “When it happens a bunch, it starts to weigh on you. And when I play, I think maybe there’s situations where I go in super hot and it’s a high-risk scenario that happens in a game. But to be honest with you, like, a lot of them are just like freak, out-of-nowhere stuff.”
Entering his fourth season of professional hockey after signing a one-year, $850,000 contract with the Senators back in July, the 23-year-old forward believes he’s on the other side of the “bad loop” that tormented him for over half a decade.
“I think there’s a lot to learn from it,” Boucher said. “When you’re in those times, it feels like the world is ending. There’s been times where I’ve rehabbed for weeks and then come back and then something happens, and then it’s back (to rehab) for weeks and it’s tough to deal with.
