Brent Seabrook has not played in an NHL game since November of 2019. He had surgeries on his shoulder and both hips in February 2020 and was given a five-to-six month recovery timeframe. He was on the ice with the Chicago Blackhawks prior to the postseason bubble (July 2020), but he did not rejoin the team then. Then, he was on the ice just a month ago with the Blackhawks before training camp for this season, where he tweaked his back, preventing him from joining the team. Since then, there has been little indication of when, or if, Seabrook would return.
Now, in an interview with Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, Blackhawks president of hockey operations and general manager Stan Bowman says Seabrook is far from returning from his back injury and that the organization is “very concerned” about his and physical longevity.
From Pope’s interview:
“We’re very concerned for him,” Bowman said. “He’s been a warrior for us. Think of his time in Chicago, he never really missed any games, but now we’re realizing he was playing through a lot of pain those years, and it’s caught up to him.
“He was dealing with his shoulders and his hips, to the point where he probably should’ve had it done years ago, but that’s how he’s always been driven: to keep moving forward, don’t worry about injuries, play through it. So yeah, we are concerned for him. We certainly hope that he can get past it.”
Seabrook has been skating on his own in the past two weeks, but nothing strenuous enough to signal that he is close to being ready to rejoin the NHL club. Bowman says in the interview that the plan and goal for Seabrook is still to return to the Blackhawks lineup this season.
Seabrook has played all 1,114 of his NHL regular season games with the Blackhawks, he ranks third all-time in games played for Chicago, trailing teammate Duncan Keith (1,151) and Stan Mikita (1,396).