Kyle Wellwood: Damaged Goods

When the Canucks picked Kyle Wellwood off of waivers, I didn't think too much of it, other than we're getting a risky Leafs castoff.

Then, I did a little more research, and I'm not liking what I'm seeing.

First, the injury history. It's not good news when any player has groin troubles, but how can a guy have to need THREE different surgeries on the area before they reach 30? Not to mention the fact that Wellwood broke his foot playing soccer earlier this off-season ... yeesh ...

The real cause for these injuries? Piss poor conditioning.

Take this diatribe from a Leafs fan over at "He Score, He Shoot!"

To say that Kyle is a baby-faced guy is the understatement of the century unless you quickly follow it up with "baby-bodied", "baby-legged" and "baby-conditioned". Everything on him is round. Kyle is so out of shape, he wouldn't make it in my league; and my league features Wash, who regularly samples an entire tasting menu with wine minutes before a game.

Everything about Wellwood's shit season can be attributed to the fact that last summer, the heaviest lifting he did was hauling the empty 2-4 case out of the back of the pickup and into his local LCBO. How do we know? Because unbelievably, Wellwood's dad said so last year before training camp.

Want proof?

How about this picture of his beer belly doing some hard rehab with his puckbunny girlfriend.



Second, Wellwood's style of play. The boy is soft, and not just his stomach, and also very small. 5'10"? With skates on ... Wellwood doesn't take the body, and doesn't shoot enough.

Basically, we have a tiny Power Play specialist in the mold of Herbert Vasiljevs.

Lovely.

Welcome to the Mike Gillis era.