Lightning's Hall makes quick return from injury

Adam Hall laid a solid, clean hit on Matt Carkner in the corner of ScotiaBank Place early in a game against Ottawa on Jan. 5. Carkner, one of Ottawa's resident enforcers, took exception and challenged Hall to drop the gloves.

Though not considered a fighter by any means, Hall knows how to handle himself in those situations with 10 previous fights in the NHL, according to HockeyFights.com web site. So Hall obliged the challenge from Carkner, who has 39 career fights in just three-plus NHL seasons.

But during that fight, Hall was off balance and as he fell to the ice, his body got twisted around and his left arm, in particular, moved in a direction it wasn't meant to go. The result was a partial tear and an excess of swelling around Hall's bicep muscle that knocked him out of action.

"It was kind of a freak thing, you lose your balance and kind of go one way and you get twisted around, and that's what happened, my arm got twisted around a little bit the wrong way and that's how it happened,'' Hall said. "It was a one in a million kind of a thing.''

Hall's recovery might have been a bit of an anomaly, as well. Less than a week after being injured, Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman said Hall was expected to miss eight weeks. But on Tuesday against Los Angeles, Hall was back in the lineup, about a month ahead of schedule and he'll be back on the ice tonight as the Lightning face the New York Rangers.

"When the original injury happens you do your initial evaluations and testing and you get an idea of what the (recovery) timeframe will be, but you are always modifying that as you go through the process,'' Lightning head medical trainer Tom Mulligan said. "After his first couple of weeks, he had a really good recovery at that point and made a lot of progress and at that point we realized it was going to be a lot quicker.''

Hall actually could have returned even sooner. He made so much progress and recovered so quickly while working on his rehabilitation with assistant medical trainer Mike Poirier and strength and conditioning coach Mark Lambert, Hall could have come back two weeks ago.

But because Hall takes a lot of faceoffs and is one of the team's main penalty killers, which requires using his left hand on the top of his stick and using twisting motions, the decision was made to hold off and ensure there were not going to be any setbacks once he was cleared to play.

"Faceoffs are a huge part of it and you use that part of your body a lot in faceoffs, but any part, and that's one of the things you try to work toward, get that range of motion and get back to a place where you feel comfortable,'' said Hall, who played 5:30 of ice time on Tuesday and won three of four faceoffs.

Coming back ahead of schedule is not the product of a miracle worker, but rather having the proper approach on the road to recovery.

"Once (an injury) happens you just try to have a positive attitude and know that every day there is something you can do to try to get better and get back,'' Hall said. "They give you guidelines, but then you put it in your mind that you want to come back as soon as possible. I just give credit to our entire training staff and everything they do, they bend over backwards to do everything they can to get guys back out on the ice as soon as possible. It's more a credit to those guys.''