New York Islanders

One of the classiest players in franchise history is suffering from an intestinal infection and food poisoning.

By Justin Weiss

Former New York Islanders captain Kenny Jönsson is suffering from an intestinal infection and blood poisoning in Sweden, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported last week.

Lighthouse Hockey originally broke the news to those of us in North America who aren’t fluent in Swedish. According to the SB Nation blog, Jönsson, 41, was rushed to the hospital while coaching at the TV-Puck hockey tournament earlier this month. He was placed in intensive care, where doctors discovered that he had an infection in his small intestine that ultimately resulted in dehydration, sepsis, and blood poisoning.

This couldn’t happen to a less deserving person.

Widely regarded as one of the classiest players in the NHL at the time, Jönsson was named team captain in September of 1999, amidst a grueling ownership change and roster rebuild.

He reluctantly accepted the title of captain (and only was the captain during the 1999-2000 seasons), as he would have prefered to express his natural leadership qualities solely on the ice. While New York wasn’t much better during his one season tenure as captain than they were in the past, he was one of the best defensemen in the league, although with the backdrop surrounding him he didn’t receive too much recognition.

He finished with 232 points in 597 games as an Islander, and was the best player on many, many bad teams. In the Summer of 2004, Jönsson became a free agent and signed with Rogle in Sweden. Two years later, he won an Olympic gold medal with the Swedish national team.

Get well, Kenny.

Justin Weiss is a staff editor at Elite Sports New York, where he covers the New York Islanders and Brooklyn Cyclones. In 2016, he received a Quill Award for Freelance Journalism. He has written for the Long Island Herald, FanSided and YardBarker.