'I have terrible FOMO': Wheeler talks amazing recovery, bond with Maurice

SUNRISE, Fla. — Even though it happened more than a decade ago now, both men — the witness and the victim, the coach and the player — remember the collision vividly.

It's March of 2014, one of Paul Maurice's first games behind the Winnipeg Jets bench. The coach spots power winger Blake Wheeler racing along the wall in Dallas during the third period.

Wheeler is wheeling when Colton Sceviour nails him toward the Dallas bench.

The Stars' gate door swings open, left unclosed for a line change, at the worst time.

Wheeler's shoulder blade slams into the open door jamb with such force, the pain sends him writhing on the ice, then crawling down the corridor for medical attention.

With roughly five minutes remaining in regulation, the Jets' trainer takes a peek, looks at Maurice and waves his hand near his own neck. Sign language for: He's done for the night.

Two and a half minutes later, Wheeler walks back out and sits down beside his teammates.

"How is he back on the bench?" Maurice asks the trainer.

"I have absolutely no idea," comes the response.

Maurice picks up the story: "I didn't say anything; he didn't say anything. He just kind of shook his head. He nodded. He went out and closed the game for us."

"Uh-oh," Wheeler says, unleashing a wide grin when a reporter approaches his stall saying Maurice told a story about him.

Hockey tough and hockey scarred, Wheeler says once the Jets doctor ran a couple tests on the shoulder and found no structural damage, it was a no-brainer to play through the pain.

"I have terrible FOMO," Wheeler says. "Let's go. Let's get back out there. I hate missing out."

Wheeler's old coach — the one who named him captain; the one who shared a trip to the Western Conference Final in 2018; the one who understands how a promising run with one franchise can crumble and leave its leaders scattering for fresh laundry, new hope — is still in his corner.

Maurice was openly rooting for a night like Tuesday, when the stubborn and driven Wheeler realized his goal of participating in a playoff game for the New York Rangers, now tied 2-2 in their heavyweight slugfest with Maurice's Florida Panthers.

"If he's down and he doesn't come back, he's hurt badly," Maurice says of the ghastly leg injury that had Wheeler needing two teammates to glide him off Madison Square Garden ice on Feb. 15.

Or that time in 2023 he finished off a win over Nashville with a ruptured testicle suffered from a blasted Josh Morrissey puck.

"He's a tough man," Maurice says. "I've seen him play with a flu [so bad], I don't know how he got through the game. And so, inspirational leader in that part. Tough as nails. And if there's a rehab program, if there's some work to be done for him to get healthier, better, faster, he is wired right into that body and will do all the things that he can to come back."

After awkwardly twisting his right leg into a pretzel this winter, Wheeler's season appeared over. The 37-year-old's one-year, $800,000, last-gasp(?) contract to keep his Stanley Cup dream afloat was at risk of ending at 54 games played and nine goals scored.

For six weeks, maybe eight, Wheeler was bound to crutches and strapped with mental hurdles.

April arrived. Playoff season. Wheeler began walking on his own.

Progress.

Hope.

Not to suit up in a game, necessarily, but to get in shape and earn a thumbs-up from the doctors. To travel to road games. To become an option.

"His work ethic has been incredible. The commitment that he made to come back from such an injury has been amazing to watch," praises current coach Peter Laviolette.

"His drive and his motivation, it's all been to give himself a chance and an opportunity to play games."

Wheeler is a realist and a dreamer all at once. 

"That's my goal the whole time. To get off LTIR. To be medically cleared. From there, see what happens," Wheeler explained, between games 3 and 4.

"I'd go through a brick wall for this team at this point."

Dripping with sweat after another long workout, the veteran's spirits were higher than anticipated. He'd graduated from unhealthy scratch to a healthy one, and with forwards Jimmy Vesey and Filip Chytil less than 100 per cent, and the Panthers finishing checks with steam, surely Wheeler could sense his number would be called.

But he wasn't going to beg Laviolette for his shot; he was content to let his work ethic be the squeaky wheel.

"It's not about me. This is way bigger than me. They know I'm ready. They know I'm champing at the bit. But the last thing I'm gonna do is give them more things to worry about than they already have on their plate. They know I'm ready to go," Wheeler says.

"It's just great to be part of it, right? That's where I'm at."

And why you signed to a contender to skate as a fourth-liner for less than a million bucks?

"One hundred per cent," Wheeler said. "The vision was initially to be in games like this. But with the injury, we've had to reroute things a little bit. But just being on the road with the guys and feeling like you're still part of it — the group has been so amazing. I still feel part of it, even though I'm not out there. I still feel part of the team."

What a moment, then, for Wheeler to have his No. 17 called for Tuesday's critical Game 4, to generate some offensive-zone time with the Rangers' other grinders, and to earn enough trust that Laviolette threw him out in the first minute of overtime.

And while the neutral-zone turnover that led to the Aleksander Barkov counterattack rush that led to Wheeler's hooking the superstar's hands wasn't his fault, Laviolette is hearing criticism for throwing Wheeler over the boards in Game 4's deciding moment. (The coach's defence: He was rolling lines all game. Why stop in OT?)

We can only imagine how excruciating it was for Wheeler watching Sam Reinhart pound home the overtime winner from the penalty box, a goal that now allows his former coach to walk a little taller as the series flies to New York.

But the player has bounced back from worse. And maybe Wheeler and Maurice will tell this story one day, too, years down the road.

"We have a relationship that is going to be one of those lifelong relationships. We've been through a lot together in Winnipeg. When you've had that relationship for 10 years, that's a pretty unique thing in pro sports," Wheeler says.

"What he's meant for me in my career, giving me the opportunities he gave me, even outside of hockey, just as a dad and as a man, I learned so much. He's someone, every summer, we keep in touch and just check in.

"So, I think we're rooting for each other in a sense, you know?" The player pauses and allows another wide grin.

"But not too much."