Stephen Johns sat out the 2021 NHL season, and he knew his career was over. It's not that the 29-year-old didn't want to play hockey anymore; he simply couldn't.
The Dallas Stars defenseman once spent 22 months sidelined dealing with post-concussion syndrome. Though he had been cleared to return to the ice, he had never really recovered. Johns still has a lingering headache at all times. During the last NHL game in which he played -- Game 1 of a first-round playoff series against the Calgary Flames in the 2020 postseason bubble -- he looked up at the clock and saw that it was the second period, but didn't remember a single shift earlier in the game.