Handzus knows Sturm’s situation

Marco Sturm has an entirely new set of teammates — he never played with any of the current Kings while in Boston or San Jose — but there’s at least one player who can relate to Sturm, who is coming off major knee surgery. Michal Handzus had ACL surgery in 2007, the season before he joined the Kings, and knows that it can be a long, sometimes frustrating recovery. Those who watched the Kings three years ago will remember that Handzus struggled in his first post-surgery season, but has excelled in his last four seasons.

Sturm has a couple things in his favor that Handzus didn’t. First, Sturm has been through this before — he had ACL surgery in 2008 — so he has a roadmap as to how the recovery goes. Second, he’s a smaller, quicker player than Handzus, and the thought is that it’s a bit easier for a player with Sturm’s body type to recover than a player such as Handzus. That remains to be seen, but I talked to Handzus today about the comparison between his situation and Sturm’s.

HANDZUS: “I think it’s different for everybody. He went through it one time already, so in a weird way that’s a good thing, because now he knows what he needs to do. When it happens the first time, you don’t know what to do and you don’t know what you’re going to be missing when you first come back, but he went through it the first time and he came back strong. He came back to the same level that he played before. So I think that’s a big help for him now, to know what he has to do, and I think he will be all right.”

Question: How tough is it, physically, when you first come back from that?

HANDZUS: “Sure, it’s tough. It’s a major injury, so it’s tough, but I think everybody handles it in a different way. It all depends on the body, too. He was always a fast skater, so I think that always helps. I don’t think he’s going to miss that much coming back, with his legs. It’s more about timing and conditioning. He went through it one time and he was as fast as he was before, so I think that tells you that his body handles it very well. So I think he should be all right. The big part is just the timing and the conditioning, game conditioning. I think that takes time, but he will be all right.”

Question: Is it a mental thing too? Does it take a while before you stop thinking about the knee?

HANDZUS: “Sure, you have it in your mind. Obviously, sometimes in the first couple games you maybe think about it a little bit, but I think he knows where he’s coming from, because he had it before. It just needs time, and he’s going to be patient. Like I said, he went through it one time, so he knows and I think he can handle it very well.”