Fans Question Whitney's Decision to Wait

After word of Ryan Whitney's surgery and extended absence from the team for 3 - 5 months, I've been browsing sites and talking with fellow fans about the situation. Plenty of discussions, and alot of them bring up a common question - why did he wait until now to have the surgery and not have it done sooner (like at the beginning of summer)?

At first thought, it does seem like a legitimate question and appears to be a bad choice on Whitney's part; however, his explanation also seems reasonable to me. Just like alot of other people, Whitney was hesitant to have the surgery because it's something major (from what I've read, an osteotomy is very major surgery). Why choose a drastic solution when there are other, less invasive ways that could provide relief? It's understandable to me even if I do feel that the wait may have been a little bit too long. Just for some background, here is information taken from WebMD.com which may give better insight to the situation than what I can:

If you get little or no joint pain relief from osteoarthritis medications, it may be time to consider joint surgery.

How do you decide? First, ask yourself and your doctor the most important question: Is there any other conservative treatment? Second, is joint surgery indicated? ...

And here are before and after x-rays of an osteotomy (this is an example taken from The Foot and Ankle Clinic; every situation may differ):

(YIKES!! I know I always wanted a screw in the heel of my foot!)

Puck Daddy chalks it up to "a dreadful summer for Pittsburgh."

Still, how crappy has this off-season been for Penguins fans where losing their No. 2 defenseman for five months is seen as a relative inconvenience by comparison?

Seth from "Empty Netters" looks at top point totals by defensemen over the past 2 seasons and comes up with "Whitney's Worth." It appears his value lies within his offense since he ranks in the top 10 defensemen and is tied for 9th with Lubomir Visnovsky of the Kings with a total of 99 points (26 goals, 73 assists) - that's impressive and something I hadn't thought of considering his less than average season last year.

One thing is for sure, we'll definitely see Whitney's importance to the team within the first few games. Defensemen's contributions aren't always apparent until they are out of the line-up completely. As much as alot of us complained about him, we may be begging to have him back in the lineup by the end of the 3 - 5 months!

Like any "relationship," maybe this will be a good "break" that all of us need (and allow us to realize just how much we may take Whitney for granted)!