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Foster injury and Colorado thoughts |
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I watched in horror, as Kurtis Foster slammed into the boards last night in San Jose. We all knew he was done for the season, in an instant. Defensemen are defenseless in so many of these situations. We should have done away with the current icing rule coming out of the lock-out. It was a major oversight. FAR too many players have been hurt on these NEEDLESS plays. We should have gone to "no-touch icing" 5 years ago.
Skating towards the boards full-speed and putting on the brakes at the last second, is a scary, dangerous play when there is no one behind you !...... when you add a big body, inches behind you, doing the same thing, it's horrific.
I don't place the blame on Torrey Mitchell completely. He is caught up in the pursuit of the puck ....... instincts to win the race, overpower the instincts of safety. This has been bred into all NHL players at this point. It shows up several times a year now, when serious injuries occur. I am very confident that Torrey Mitchell will not execute that play the same way again, you could see he was visibly shaken by causing bodily harm to Foster. The problem is, he had to go thru this, in oreder to experience it and adjust his conduct accordingly. How many other players have to learn this way, before we say "ENOUGH" !??
The argument that keeping the icing rule the way it is, to keep play going and encourage battles for the puck, is at the very least misdirected and behind the times, and at worst ludicrous. I suspect that many of the proponents of it were never defensemen,. never played, or were always "the second man in" on those plays (by choice). I remember Hall-of Famer Al MacInnis pounding the table about this 5 years ago...... Don Cherry has screamed from the roof-tops for years. Would somebody please listen. Today's players are too big and too fast and the speed of the game is too un controllable to put players in harm's way for needless causes.
Avs
Colorado fans seemed very upset by the effort level vs Minnesota. The Wild can do that to the other 28 teams too !!. They are expert at taking momentum away. Playing smart and being patient often mean picking your spots. Trying not to give-up anything leads to sitting back, which is often mis-diagnosed as lack of effort.
Certain players are separated from the herd on this premise. Wojtek Wolski is a prime example. His skating style, even in his best game, gives the impression of lack of effort. True, he doesn't focus sometimes and floats around. Joel Quenneville benched him for it. He is still learning when and where to put the extra effort in. He'll get there. Larry Murphy was "booed" half-way to the Hall of Fame, because people didn't get his style. On the other hand, fans who remember John Tonelli will tell you how hard he worked. That is true, .. but John's skating style could make skating 50 ft to pick up a pail of pucks at practice, look like it was inspiring. Perception is not the whole story.
The pp will revolve around Forsberg and Sakic, as it should. J M Liles has played terrific hockey since the Trade deadline and is the best at jumpimg into holes. Leopold has a solid shot, as does Salei and Finger. They are prone to being more stationary. Mixing and matching will be the most effective. Ryan Smyth is not all the way back, from that horrific hit he took. He will play himself back into his mos6t effective place on the pp ... in front of the net.
This game with Calgary will be very telling. My hope is the Avs play it physical in that very tough building. The big bodies have to play, and they have to be effective
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