Overcoming obstacles

MONTREAL – Life has certainly thrown Zach Redmond a couple of curveballs along the way – both of which caught him off guard, but didn’t slow him down.

At the age of 15, Redmond suffered a stroke while attending a prospects tournament in Toronto that left the right side of his body temporarily numb. He would relearn how to talk and walk again before going on to play two seasons with the USHL’s Sioux City Stampede ahead of a four-year stint with Ferris State University, located 90 miles south of his home in Traverse City, MI. “I don’t think it affected me as much as people think. It was kind of a freak thing that happened because I was healthy at the time. It was weird for a little bit, getting used to doing everything again and being in and out of the hospital for a couple of weeks. But, two weeks later I was going pretty quick. I just had to take blood thinners the rest of the summer as a precaution,” said Redmond, reflecting upon the experience. 

Then, on February 21, 2013 – just eight games into his rookie year with the Winnipeg Jets – Redmond suffered a lacerated femoral artery in his right leg in Raleigh, NC when a teammate accidentally skated over his thigh after he fell to the ice during a battle drill at the morning skate.

Miraculously, after undergoing emergency surgery and plenty of rehab back home, the up-and-coming defenseman returned to skate with the Jets six weeks later, and even got a few games in with the St. John’s IceCaps – then Winnipeg’s AHL affiliate – to close out the year.

Simply put, Redmond defied all medical odds with his recovery, and he never let himself believe that his professional career was over before it even really had the chance to begin.

He would go on to play one more year in the Jets organization – primarily in the AHL – ahead of a two-year stint with the Colorado Avalanche before signing a two-year deal with the Canadiens on July 1.

While both the surgical scar and memories of the unfortunate incident remain, the 28-year-old insists that it doesn’t enter into his thinking when he’s patrolling the blue line, even if something like that would be rather difficult for anyone to put by the wayside.

“Today, it’s really like nothing happened. Mentally, I don’t think about it. Physically, it doesn’t bug me. I’ve really just turned the page on it,” said Redmond, who has gone on to play 106 NHL games in …

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