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The initial estimates of being out for only 10 weeks came and went with little improvement. When he did make his first tentative steps at returning in January, it felt like he was “floating around” on the ice.

MacArthur expects no sympathy. He says he created his own nightmare, ignoring telltale concussion symptoms at the end of training camp.

“I feel like if I had just went with my gut instinct from Day 1, I would have missed 10 games and I would have played the rest of the year,” MacArthur said in an exclusive interview with Postmedia at his Ottawa home last week. “It would have been a different situation. It could have been a completely different year.”

Instead, he looks back — in painstaking detail — about his long months of inactivity and uncertainty.

THE BIG HITS

In September, MacArthur was full of confidence, believing the team “was ready to take some big leaps”. Any concerns about the February, 2015 concussion he suffered following a collision with goaltender Robin Lehner were history by the time he scored two goals in six playoff games against Montreal in the spring.

Everything changed in the final game of the pre-season. MacArthur was backchecking, aiming to stop Montreal’s Alex Galchenyuk, as Senators minor-league defenceman Mark Fraser stepped up to “strong arm” the Montreal forward. Galchenyuk dodged the hit. MacArthur didn’t. The hit to the jaw was jarring.

Photo by Jean Levac / Ottawa Citizen

“It stunned me, it was like the (concussion) before and I was thinking ‘oh, no,’” MacArthur said. “I went to the bench, trying to hide it almost, but the trainers saw it.”