How serious was Kyle Okposo's eye injury last season?

I cannot wait for training camps to start a little less than a month away, because it will start giving us some good things to chew on.

Since it is mid-to-late August, we get some things that are clearly filler. It is not that it is bad, but it is also not entirely new or captivating.

That is what we get from THN’s Jared Clinton and his projections of 20 players who could become unrestricted free agents by the end of the season. Like I said, it is not bad and it is not entirely new either. You too can compile a list of your own by going to a site like Cap Friendly and pick from all the UFAs.

What has me mentioning Clinton’s article is who he has eighth on his list: Kyle Okposo. This is what he writes: “Okposo has always seemed like a definite threat to breakout and have a 30-goal season, but injuries have almost always gotten the best of him,” and “His stock will shoot through the roof [if] he’s healthy all year.”

Honestly, how can you argue with that? I liked Okposo before and it is true that he was progressing very well from his 2013-14 season of 69 points. Again, from Clinton, “It was the best performance of his career and he was heating up in 2014-15 before an upper body injury put him on the shelf.”

Oh-no, the dreaded “upper body injury.” Up to that point in time, Okposo had garnered 44 points in 46 games for the Islanders.

We know what it was. He had a detached retina and Clinton should have said exactly that. This was not a normal "pulled rib" or something of a similar nature injury. The specifics of the injury were, I believe, broken by Katie Strang of ESPN.

That is not the end of it though as we find out from Arthur Staple via his Twitter account. He indicated that Okposo needed a second surgery to deal with an infection.

Infections happen, that the surgeries were successful and that it did not take more time for Okposo to recover was great news. It still sounds like a very scary injury though.

I found a Sports Illustrated piece by Sarah Barshop that explains the condition through an interview with Dr. Richard Kaiser of the Wills Eye Hospital and Philadelphia 76ers team ophthalmologist.

He answers what a detached retina is, what can be done to reattach them, how quickly they need to be treated, and how they can occur.

It is the part of how they can occur that interested me. Aside from a trauma to the eye, “There are other factors that go into it, including if you’re nearsighted and if you have a family history,” said Dr. Kaiser.

A little more digging into the injury and I find that back on March 9, 2015, Newsday’s Arthur Staple, the same Arthur Staple that broke the injury news over Twitter, wrote about what Okposo experienced at the time he was diagnosed with the injury and how his recovery was nearing the end.

Okposo indicated to Staple, “I had some blurry vision after the Philly game [on Jan 19]. I was driving home to my daughter’s [first] birthday party and I knew something was wrong. That whole night, it didn’t get any better. So I went in, saw the retina specialist right away and he said, ‘You have a detached retina and we need to do surgery right away.’ It was pretty scary and there wasn’t a guarantee I was going to see again.”

This is pretty much what we expected to hear and what other sources were saying too.

What is not said by others is that, “Okposo said his natural eyesight is poor and that he was told it likely made him prone to a detached retina”, indicated Staple.

He goes on, “As a preventative measure, the eye surgeon did some work on the right eye, too” wrote Staple and he quotes Okposo, “They did some treatment in the other eye because it was headed along the same path.”

It is very good news to hear that Okposo recovered and did so quick enough to participate in the playoffs. Unlike some of the other players mentioned within the articles I referenced, they did not recover as well or have the same level of productivity as they had prior to their respective eye injuries. Admittedly, some of their circumstances were more traumatic than Okposo’s. However, three surgeries in total, on both eyes worry me.

Maybe there was some truth to the rumors that Islander GM Garth Snow was shopping Okposo around at the draft this summer. Yes I know that he denied those rumors. I would deny them too if I were in his shoes.

Yet, if I could get something in return that helped my team with its immediate mandate and possibly a prospect for the future, I would entertain the thought of a trade. The Islanders do have the luxury of having a pretty good roster and some excellent prospects in their system.

Some point in time during this season, barring any other Okposo injury, would be a good time to flip Kyle to strengthen other roster weaknesses and to keep the prospect pipeline stocked too.

Whether you are an NHL GM or a fantasy hockey owner, you have to face tough decisions with your rosters.

Two phases pop into my head. The first is that Okposo could be “A sight for a team’s sore eyes,” be it the Islanders or another club.

The second is a bit dark. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Let’s hope it does not come to that.