Isles Day to Day: Clutterbuck Update

Cal Clutterbuck was on the ice with the Islanders for Tuesday's morning skate, a sign that he's nearing a return to the lineup after being out for over two months with a wrist laceration.
The freak injury occurred on Dec. 19, when a routine counter-hit on Patrice Bergeron caused the Bruins' center to fall over and nick Clutterbuck's wrist with his skate.

It's not the first time Clutterbuck has been sliced with a skate blade and the Islanders' forward knew something was wrong when he got back to the bench. He had surgery the next day to repair the damage - which included cut tendons - and has been sidelined since.
"I'm getting better every day," Clutterbuck said. "It's been a strange couple of months, so I'm just trying to figure out my way and every day is kind of a learning process for me. Just trying to get a feel for this whole thing."

Clutterbuck said the rehab has been a long and tedious process. With an upper-body injury, he's been able to skate and has skated on his own for the past couple of weeks. He recently completed a two-game conditioning stint down in Bridgeport over the weekend, marking a big checkpoint on the road to his return.
Clutterbuck volunteered to go down to Bridgeport to get a sense of his progress, limitations and test out his wrist in game action. He said apart from some atrophy, the product of being in a cast post-surgery, his wrist is feeling good, but he's working through another, undisclosed issue.
However, after suffering another serious skate cut (he also suffered one to his leg in 2013), Clutterbuck said he had to work through some mental hurdles to get back to his physically demanding, wrecking ball style of play. The 32-year-old winger said he was a little tentative in his first game back in Bridgeport on Saturday, but that he felt more like himself on Sunday.
"I felt comfortable from the start of the second game, I felt like I was able to at least put forth the effort and style of game that I've been accustomed to providing," he added. "The second game was really, really good for my mental state coming back up here. The whole process was very beneficial so I'm grateful for that opportunity."

After his own injury and seeing line-mate Casey Cizikas suffer a leg laceration on Feb. 11, Clutterbuck said NHL players need to start taking further precautions to protect themselves against one of the sharper hazards on the ice.
Clutterbuck won't play on Tuesday and said it's premature to offer up a timetable for his return. He said he wants to take things day by day to make sure he's feeling 100% for his own benefit and that of the team.
"When it's this time of year, you don't want to put your teammates or yourself in a position where you make a play that is going to cost the team a point or two," Clutterbuck said. "It's not fair to them or myself, if I come back I want to come back as strong as possible."