The NHL's injury epidemic
by James Mirtle on Nov 17, 2009 6:14 PM CST
33 comments
There is approximately $180 million worth of players injured right now. (I’m talking either LTI or just out for a few games. That’s more than 10 per cent of each team’s available cap space.)
It's a long list, there's no doubt, and you can't help but wonder if the condensed schedule is to blame. The quarter-way mark in this season is coming up on Friday, and there are an awful lot of bodies banged up.
Don't be surprised if more than one team ends up in extreme cap trouble by April as a result.
A great example of just how big the injury ward is this season is in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are without their top four defencemen. They somehow pulled out a 5-2 win against the Ducks on Monday with this top six (ranked by ice time):
Mark Eaton: 27:09
Martin Skoula: 18:39
Deryk Engelland: 18:33
Ben Lovejoy: 18:30
Jay McKee: 16:39
Nate Guenin: 14:42
Had to look up a couple first names there... and that ain't good.
Teams like Edmonton, Vancouver and Detroit are just as beat up, and I've gotten more emails the past two weeks asking for man-games lost to injury figures than I can ever remember.
It's getting to the point that health, more than any other factor, is going to determine a lot of the playoff seedings this year.
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With the Pens,
taking back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup final has got to be tiring. It’s finally showing with all of the injuries.
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by Brad_Richards_Rocks on Nov 17, 2009 6:20 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Same could maybe be said for the Red Wings.
by hallock on Nov 17, 2009 6:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Detroit went to the semis in the ‘07 as well, and were banged up pretty good when they lost to Anaheim. Around half of that roster is still part of this year’s squad. 63 playoff games over the past 3 seasons is a ton of extra hockey.
by Bosc Ulrich on Nov 17, 2009 9:23 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Plus a whole lot of overseas games as well. And the Wings are up there in age…..
by Vinn on Nov 17, 2009 9:24 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Luckily their average team age dropped about 100 years when they didn’t re-sign Chelios.
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by saskhab on Nov 17, 2009 10:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Injury woes
The Blackhawks are right up there with Vancouver and Detroit as well with Jordan Hendry, lately, playing forward due to our own cap issues that has prevented the Hawks from calling up Skille.
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by hawks61 on Nov 17, 2009 6:30 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
you can’t help but wonder if the condensed schedule is to blame
Sitting in Atlanta where the Thrashers had two 4 day and one 5 day breaks between games in October ,it looks more like a schedule of fits and starts than a compressed one. Terry Frei had a piece on this during the summer and he calculated that there are 179 days in this year’s schedule vs 181 last year. There probably are more back to back games (someone has probably figured out how many) but its too early to attribute very many of these injuries to fatigue, although I’m sure the schedule will get blamed for just about everything this year. The headline injuries have been concussions and players cut by skate blades (Markov, Ward): with only 20 games played, I think its hard to establish a connection between those kinds of injuries and the schedule.
by Big Picture Guy on Nov 17, 2009 7:25 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Yeah. If we have such a compressed schedule, why are the Red Wings in the middle of their third three day layoff, one of which went four days, in a month?
by J. Michael Neal on Nov 17, 2009 10:11 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
A lot of teams are having some longer breaks due to arena share issues, but many of those teams will be having 4 games a week every week coming up. Not going to be pretty.
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by TheTick on Nov 18, 2009 8:03 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
The schedule will be more compressed if it hasn’t been yet. There are far more back to backs this year.
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by James Mirtle on Nov 18, 2009 11:19 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Sure. There would be far fewer back to backs later if they didn’t have so many half week layoffs early. It’s dumb.
by J. Michael Neal on Nov 18, 2009 3:50 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
kind of sad for Jay McKee that even with that depleted lineup he still sat 5th in minutes played.
by no ah on Nov 17, 2009 8:00 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
McKee missed a few shifts after blocking a shot. Worse, there’s some (unsubstantiated) speculation that he may end up missing a few games with injury as a result.
by ppirilla on Nov 17, 2009 8:43 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
McKee injured on a blocked shot? Man, who would’ve thought?
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by saskhab on Nov 17, 2009 10:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Better than a leg infection on the eve of Game 7 Eastern Conference Finals.
by Afino on Nov 18, 2009 7:23 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Don’t forget Carolina.
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by Doogie2K on Nov 17, 2009 8:08 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
I heard talk that if Legace is seriously hurt, they might have to send Sutter back down just to get cap space to sign another goalie? I wouldn’t think of Carolina as a cap-strapped team…
And why aren’t they using LTIR for temporary relief re: Ward and Staal?
by Afino on Nov 18, 2009 7:24 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
The Caps seem to have another season of injury woes. Got AO back, but already lost Knuble and Gordon, Semin was sent back to DC because of injury right before the game, and now Laing appears to have a broken jaw. (not as bad as some teams, but seems like once they get one guy back, another 1 or 2 goes down)
by RedBirdie on Nov 17, 2009 9:43 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
I think a lot of Washington’s injury problems have to do with their style of play.
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by saskhab on Nov 17, 2009 10:28 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Really? I can understand Ovie (sorta, although he had averaged 81 gp/season), Laing (blocks a ton of shots), but Gordon doesn’t play as gritty a game (he has been getting hurt more and more recently though) and Knuble had played 82 games in 4 of the last 5 seasons. I think it’s more coincidence than style of play. If anything, their style is less conducive to injury, imo.
by red army line on Nov 18, 2009 8:11 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
In Ovie’s case, he was like a ticking time bomb with the way he plays (reckless abandon). Sure, he hadn’t been hurt before now, but it was a matter of time before he was.
One injury does not an epidemic make though.
by Afino on Nov 18, 2009 8:58 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
“One injury does not an epidemic make though.” Is this referring to my original post about another season of injury woes for the Caps?
by RedBirdie on Nov 18, 2009 9:40 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I was referring to Ovechkin’s lack of injuries to this point and then people referring to him as “injury prone” specifically. Sorry.
by Afino on Nov 18, 2009 10:55 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
no problem, just wanted to be clear.
by RedBirdie on Nov 18, 2009 11:15 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Edmonton’s probably an easy one to figure out: Pat Quinn trying to take a collection of players that are tough as rubber nails and having them play his style.
Reminds me of the Brian Sutter days here in Calgary, and that didn’t work well either.
by Resolute on Nov 18, 2009 12:01 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
Sheldon Souray’s concussion was totally Pat Quinn’s fault. He made Iginla trip him face-first into the boards.
Come to think of it, so’s the swine flu.
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by Doogie2K on Nov 19, 2009 8:19 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Sabres have stayed relatively unscathed so far, which probably is the reason why they’ve done so well.
- Vanek was injured early, but dodged a huge bullet when “weeks” turned into “two games”
- Connolly has played every game (I’m sure he’ll be hurt tonight or something)
Only “significant” injury has been Lydman, who has missed 10 games with a groin injury, but he’s back tonight. And the Sabres have had the depth to cover the onesy, twosy injuries they have had.
by Afino on Nov 18, 2009 7:27 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
I wish the Leafs had more injuries.
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by PPP on Nov 18, 2009 9:46 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Well, life without Gustavsson and Kessel wasn’t pretty.
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by James Mirtle on Nov 18, 2009 11:20 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
It looks like Ryan Smyth will probably miss a month or so with a shoulder injury. In other surprising news, the Sun came up this morning.
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by RudyKelly on Nov 18, 2009 9:57 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
Everyone will point to the condensed schedule, which is sure to get a whole lot worse, but the way so many teams have had layoffs of several days is what’s really making it hard. When teams are having layoffs of 4+ days, and doing so somewhat regularly, its ridiculous.
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by IAmJoe on Nov 18, 2009 1:57 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
The Sabres are in the middle of four consecutive weeks where their only games are Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. Three games in four nights followed by a three day break. Doesn’t make a lot of sense.
by Afino on Nov 19, 2009 11:46 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
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