Senators' Karlsson on returning to hockey after son's death: 'It's been hard'

Erik Karlsson and the Ottawa Senators have been playing with heavy hearts following the loss of the captain's unborn son on March 19.

Karlsson opened up about the devastating tragedy, saying things haven't been easy, but he appreciates all the support he's received.

"I'm doing okay," Karlsson told the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch following Thursday's overtime win over the Florida Panthers. "It's been an extremely tough time and a situation I never expected to be in.

"I just want to thank my teammates, this organization, this community, people around the league and people we don't even know for giving us their support and our time to be ourselves and grieve. Looking back it meant a lot to us for all the people that reached out - people that we know and people that we don't know. It helped us get through this a little bit."

Karlsson doesn't anticipate things getting any easier, but he and his wife Melinda Currey have remained strong.

"It's going to take us a very long time to get back to normal, but we're going to do everything we can to stay as positive as possible," he said. "I think my wife has handled the situation better than I could have ever imagined and it's not something that you can prepare yourself for."

Thursday's win was Karlsson's third contest since his son's death, but claims it's been hard to get himself up for games, even though it's helped take his mind off things.

"It's been hard ... It's been hard to kind of get the motivation," he said. "At the same time, it's been kind of a comfort zone to get back into routine and think about something else for awhile.

"At the end of the day, these guys mean a lot to me and when we go through something like this everybody gets together and they really embraced me and given me everything that I need in this time. For me to just get back to normal and see everybody else behave normal has helped me a lot."

Karlsson's status for the team's final road trip remains unclear, but he's hoping he "can play the remainder of the season out."