Determined McSween Has Battle on His Hands : Hockey: While undergoing rehabilitation for a serious injury, the Duck defenseman isn’t guaranteed a roster spot.

Don McSween is back on the ice, where he can know the satisfaction of his own smooth skating again. He can feel the flow of a hockey game, even if it’s only a pickup game with other Michigan State alumni.

What he can’t know yet is when--or if--he will be able to become the player he once was and return to the NHL.

Seven months have passed since the frightening scene Jan. 21 in Winnipeg, when McSween’s blood spurted onto the ice in front of the Mighty Ducks’ bench after the Jets’ Keith Tkachuk accidentally stepped on McSween’s right wrist with his razor-sharp skate blade.

Moments later, McSween found himself in a swirl of trainers and doctors, then gazed down at the exposed inner workings of his arm and thought, “Geez, this is what people die of.”

By the time he got to the emergency room, McSween was no longer in danger. The fear was that an artery had been severed. None was, but nine tendons and two nerves were, stealing the feeling and dexterity from his right hand--the one he uses to control his stick.

It typically takes a year to rehabilitate after the delicate surgery--and full recovery is far from guaranteed.

That leaves McSween with five months of rehabilitation ahead with training camp set to open Sept. 10. His doctors, team physician Ronald Glousman and hand specialist Norman Zemel, are hopeful he can return this season. “Not at the beginning, but more likely in the middle,” Glousman said.

“I’ve got a ways to go, but I’ve still got a chance to play again,” McSween said from his home in Lansing, Mich. “I’m going to come to camp and do what I can. [The Ducks] said I didn’t have to, but my feeling is out of sight, out of mind. I want to make sure I’m there and I’m ready, whether it’s Thanksgiving or February, hopefully sooner.”

At 31, McSween doesn’t have all the time in the world to overcome his injury. It makes his story more poignant to know he bounced around the minors for most of seven seasons before he got a break in Anaheim and established himself as an NHL defenseman.

“You have to be patient and give yourself a full year from the date of the accident,” he said. “In my case, I don’t have that kind of time. My future is now. I don’t have two or three years.”

At home, McSween still eats, writes and brushes his teeth with his left hand. He still doesn’t have any sensation in his ring or pinky fingers, and parts of his hand feel numb, almost as if shot with Novocain.

“I can’t pretend to be 100% healthy or fake anything,” he said. “This is not an injury you can play through. It’s not a charley horse, you can’t grin and bear it. It’s not that it hurts, but there’s not anything you can make yourself do to get the feeling again, to get the same strength, flexibility and coordination.”

The Ducks can’t count on McSween returning to be one of the anchors of their defense, but General Manager Jack Ferreira, for one, is pulling for him.

“I haven’t had one doctor say he’ll never play again. It will just take time; we can’t rush it,” Ferreira said. “For his sake I hope he gets back full use. He worked so hard for so many years to get here. I know it would be a big disappointment if he doesn’t play again.”

In August, with seven months of rehabilitation behind him, McSween started playing casual games in the Lansing area with other professional players who went to Michigan State.

“If you were sitting in the stands, you wouldn’t be able to tell I was injured, you’d just think I had really bad hands,” McSween said.

“I can’t really shoot, and if I try to make a pass it might be 15 feet off. I can make good ones, but I need time. At this level, that’s pretty tough. When you see your chance to pass, you have to do it. You can’t wait or the passing lane will be gone or someone will be right on top of you.

“If I get in the corners, I can’t dig out the puck. If it squirts off the boards, I can’t corral it or stick handle very well. I can’t swing my stick around either. Anything spontaneous, or anything quick, is difficult.”

Now McSween must learn to adjust for the loss of dexterity and diminished feeling in his hand--even as he waits to see if more will return. He will experiment with a smaller and lighter stick, and with a custom glove--perhaps with extra padding in the palm to help him grip the stick, or with the webbing between the fourth and fifth fingers removed so that he can tape the fingers together. At times, he says, his hand feels almost like an animal’s paw, not the skilled hand of an athlete.

“It will still take several more months of rehabilitation,” Glousman said. “The other part is getting used to handling the hockey stick. After an injury like this, the body has to reteach itself how to use the hand and stick and adapt to the problems and weaknesses and stiffness. How long it will be before he gets to the level he can perform competitively, we can’t say.”

Although the tendons have healed, nerves typically don’t fully recover, and feeling and the ability to control motion returns slowly over the first year after surgery. In McSween’s case, the ulnar nerve--which is about the diameter of a pencil--is recovering slowly. It controls many of the small muscles in the hand--with the exception of those near the thumb--and also is responsible for sensation in the ring finger and pinky.

If McSween were a heavy laborer and the injury had been caused by machinery, he would be looking for a new career, Glousman said. But because he is an athlete, so accustomed to training and rehabilitation and with so much at stake, he is giving everything he has to his comeback attempt.

“From the word go, he has had an extremely positive outlook,” said Glousman, who assisted Zemel, the hand specialist, on McSween’s three-hour surgery last January. “His outlook is that in his mind he knows he is going to recover. He himself is part of the driving force to get himself back on ice. That motivation and anticipation of returning are part of what is helping his progress.

“He’s not feeling sorry for himself, not saying ‘What if?’ as everyone does following an injury or accident. He accepts it and moves forward. That’s what’s allowing him to make strides.”

McSween has had injuries that were considered serious before, but they pale beside this one.

“I’ve come back before from knee surgeries,” he said. “I had a partial tear of my [anterior cruciate ligament], I had surgery on my [medial collateral ligament] and I’ve had three knee operations for cartilage. Those are supposed to be serious, but I always had the feeling I’d come back. But this injury is not a common athletic injury. It’s hard to know where I should be in two months, four months, six months.

“I’m not really sure where I stand, but I don’t want to be pessimistic,” McSween said. “It’s not good for me and it doesn’t help you in the healing process. If I’m pessimistic, the team will think I don’t think I can play again, and if I don’t think I can come back, how can they?

“People have come back from a lot worse things, a lot worse accidents.”

Coincidentally, McSween signed his first big contract last fall, one that could pay in the $300,000 range instead of the $50,000 average he made in the minors.

“The main thing about making the NHL is that you want to play at this level. The money’s nice, it’s important, I’m not saying it isn’t,” he said. “But the dream you have is to be able to play.

“Now that I’m here. I want to play. The window of opportunity is getting narrower and narrower. But I can’t get frustrated. There’s only so much you can do. If there was something you could do, you’d stay up at night kicking yourself to do it, but there’s not. I just want to stay in the best shape I can so if I hit a spurt where things suddenly improve, I’ll be ready.”

* DUCKS, GOALIE AGREE TO TERMS

Mighty Ducks and goaltender Guy Hebert agreed to terms on a multiyear contract worth about $1 million a year. C7

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Long Road Back

Mighty Duck defenseman Don McSween severed two nerves and nine tendons in his right arm when cut by an opponent’s skate blade in a game last Jan. 21. Three days later he had surgery to repair the damage. Although the tendons have healed, the recovery of the two nerves is still in question.

Median nerve: Controls small muscles around thumb; responsible for sensation in thumb, index and ring fingers.

Ulnar nerve: Controls small muscles in hand that affect fine motor control, except in thumb area; also responsible for sensation in small and ring fingers.

Rehabilitation

McSween must learn to use his hand again--grasp, pinch and maneuver while accommodating for lost motion--before he can resume his hockey career. Steps in rehabilitation:

* Three weeks of passive motion therapy (movement caused by another person or device)

* Active motion therapy (McSween causes motion), to continue for a year

Current Status

* Tendons have healed.

* He has no feeling in ring and small fingers; nerves, particularly the ulnar, typically don’t fully recover.

* McSween has returned to the ice and has been playing casual games, trying to relearn stick skills.

What’s Ahead

* Five months of rehabilitation; neither McSween nor his doctors know if his hand will fully recover.

Prognosis

“There’s no question he will be able to get back on the ice and handle a stick. The question is what degree of proficiency, what degree of skill level he’ll be able to regain.”

--Dr. Ronald Glousman

Sources: Dr. Ronald Glousman

Researched by ROBYN NORWOOD / Los Angeles Times