I just wanted to weigh in on the hip injury front. I am a Biomedical Engineer, with a concentration in Biomechanics. I am currently trying to find out the specifics of his hip injury and surgery.
But we can't compare this to Emery as his condition of
avascular necrosis, where there was a lack of blood flow, and bone actually died and decayed. Most people who aren't of professional athlete build are lucky to be able to walk after this surgery.
Now, I believe Niity's condition was a case of
femoroacetabular impingement. Which is essentially the head of the femur or the hip socket is in some way irregular and not perfectly rounded as it should be. J.S. Giguere had this issue and since his surgery has not had any further issues that I know of, essentially the doctor goes in and sands down whatever the impinged surface is and resets the hip.
Also, while I am on the soapbox, if you have a young goaltender, please, PLEASE, refrain from teaching them the butterfly method until they are lanky enough for it to be effective. If you check out the little chart in the PPT I made, please notice the correlation in age learned and hip surgery. If your kid isn't going to be an NHL goalie, he is still going to live with the stress on his hips, and not have a million dollar contract or specialist like Phillipon to fall back on...
For reference, here is a basic PPT I did on the issues with Butterfly goaltending from a Biomechanics point of view:
http://docs.google.com/present/embed...49_263g558h7dm
Also this is a great article from SI about the issues goaltenders have had as well:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...ies/index.html
And if you really want to get educated, an article on the surgery from the doctor who pioneered it and has worked on many professional athletes, the most recent one being A-Rod, IIRC:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950586/