Photo: Bildbyrån
HV71’s new acquisition Joona Luoto has not played since the SHL premiere.
Now he has been seen training with sunglasses on, but it is still unclear what exactly is wrong.
– He has had some problems with his eyes which we are working on and trying to get on the right side of, team doctor Jonas Kalman tells Jönköpings-Posten.
Last summer, Finnish joined Joona Luoto27, from Swiss SC Bern, to HV71. He has previously played in Tappara in his home country, Winnipeg Jets and Columbus Blue Jackets in the NHL as well as in various AHL clubs. The start in Jönköping has not turned out as planned for Luoto.
“We’re doing some testing”
The forward fell ill after the opening match against Växjö (3-4 loss) and has not played since. He has missed six rounds so far and is expected to miss more games. The club has not wanted to say why the star signing was missing, but now team doctor Jonas Kalman tells the local newspaper Jönköpings-Posten that it is an eye problem.
– He has had some problems with his eyes, which we are working on and trying to get on the right side of. We are doing some testing to see if we can solve it, he says.
This week, Joona Luoto was able to start training on ice again. He was spotted at Husqvarna Garden wearing sunglasses last week. Then rumors began to spread that he had suffered a concussion. The team doctor denies it, but at the same time cannot give a clear explanation of what is wrong.
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– As far as we know, nothing has happened to cause him to have problems with his eyes. We haven’t seen him get hit or anything, he had a little period of illness before but this thing with the eyes has remained after that. We have a couple of theories that we are working on and have some external help with the eye piece. When it’s resolved, he can drive at full speed, says Jonas Kalman.
Might come back soon
It is still a little early to expect a comeback for Joona Luoto. He’ll be back next week at the earliest, but probably later than that. He will miss a couple of important games for HV71, who are still struggling at the bottom of the SHL table. However, they have managed to win two games now and are in eleventh place.
– It is getting better and better so we hope that he will be back soon, although it is difficult to make a prognosis when we do not really know where the fault lies. But I wouldn’t think he’ll play this week, he needs to train a couple of real sessions first before he’s ready for the game, says Kalman about Luoto.
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Extremely strange eye injury suffered by new signing Joona Luoto. Let’s hope he’ll be back soon.
Get over it, Joona. There are probably many HV supporters who wish you were back on the ice already this week.
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