For Garnet Hathaway, the past several weeks have been anything but easy.
After taking a dangerous hit against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Feb. 27, he was sidelined with an upper-body injury, forced to watch as his team navigated the chaos of a trade deadline, some disappointing stretches of games, and a coaching change—all from a frustrating distance.
Now, finally, he's back. And more importantly—"I feel like myself," he said simply.
But getting to that point wasn't as straightforward as it might seem.
A Long, Unpredictable Road Back
Hathaway is no stranger to playing through pain. His game is built on grit, on heavy forechecking, on being the guy who makes life miserable for opponents. But this wasn't the type of injury he could just push through.
"There wasn't any set time," Hathaway said when asked how long it took him to feeling right. Recovery wasn't about following a calendar—it was about listening to his body, even when his instincts told him to push harder.
Patience is not something that comes naturally to a player like Hathaway, whose career has been defined by relentless work. But patience was exactly what he had to learn.
"I think, if anything, this is showing me that you may fall into the understanding that a lot of things are in your control," he admitted. "Especially in this league, preparing for a game is in your control. So many things start creeping in and you think you have control over them, and then one thing happens that you don't have control over, and you start realizing...there's a lot more that you don't have control over than you do."
We got to talk to Garnet Hathaway for the first time since he sustained an upper-body injury on Feb. 27. He had a really insightful answer about being patient and what the recovery process taught him, even as a player approaching a decade in the NHL. #LetsGoFlyerspic.twitter.com/qzKtiPez1g
— Siobhan Nolan (@SGNolan) March 31, 2025
It was a humbling realization, one that forced him to slow down and take things day by day. "It's just the perspective and trying to get back to where I was—trying to be patient and really be in that moment."
Watching from the Sidelines
As if being injured wasn't hard enough, Hathaway had to sit back and watch as his team went through some of the most dramatic weeks of the season without him. The Flyers made moves at the trade deadline, lost key pieces, and most significantly, saw John Tortorella step away from the bench and Brad Shaw assume interim head coaching duties.
For a player as invested in the room as Hathaway, not being able to be in the thick of it was a challenge."It's always tough for how close this room is," he admitted. "There were a lot of moments that I wanted to be a part of. The losses, the trades, the coaching change. I wasn't in the room for that; I couldn't really see stuff firsthand."
Instead, he was left to observe from the outside, itching to get back, but ...
