The Hits Just Keep on Comin'
Following last nights injuries to both Marc Savard and Sergei Gonchar, you can now add the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins to the list of teams suffering major early season setbacks.
They join the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings as one of the club's that has suffered a major injury to one of their key players within the first 10 games.
The Canadiens lost their All-Star D-man Andrei Markov and the Wings have lost their work-horse and scoring machine Johan Franzen, both of these players suffered major injuries and will be lost to their clubs for upwards of 4 months.
Gonchar and Savard will both be out for approximately half the time of Markov and Franzen, but their absence from the lineup will definitely have a detrimental impact on their respective teams ability to win.
Considering that the injury bug is apparently something to be on the lookout for this season, one has to wonder whether it hurts more to lose a top forward or a top D-man?
The Habs without Markov seem entirely unbalanced.
The Wings without Franzen have to rely on a defense first mentality as opposed to their usual run and gun style.
The Penguins have gone through the Gonchar absence last season, mind you they still managed to win the Cup. That said, the Pens are only too happy that Sarge will only be out for 6-8 weeks.
The Bruins have not had to face teams without Marc Savard and this will be an extremely difficult challenge. Boston does not have the same kind of lineup this season and a prolonged absence of their top playmaker and scoring forward is certainly going to be their biggest challenge of the season.
It's a tough call between who you would miss more. The reality is that missing an elite player, no matter what the position, kills a teams game plan.
The Pens and Wings are deep enough to likely shoulder the loss of their top players with players from within their system, but the Habs and Bruins do not have anyone with the same caliber of talent waiting in the wings to help out.
We are only 10 games in and some of the top players in the league have begun to drop like flies.
Hopefully it won't happen to your team, but considering what we are already seeing injuries to Markov, Gonchar, Franzen and Savard, it seems that staying healthy is going to be one of the toughest challenges of the year.
If it happened to your team and they lost a top player, would it hurt more to lose a top D-man or a 1st line forward?
A Note on #92
Michael Nylander is likely to play hockey this weekend, but it might not be in Washington.
Word is spreading fast that Nylander will indeed not be playing for the Capitals tomorrow night or this weekend, despite what their current lineup may look like.
Instead, there are rumblings of a solution on the horizon.
Both parties are clamming up and we likely will not hear of anything until all the loose ends have been tied up, but it's starting to seem like there might be a light at the end of tunnel.
I will do my best to provide any updates if there is anything of relevance that I can discover/divulge regarding this matter, but for now, just know that Nylander will not make it into the Caps lineup anytime soon, but that he is working hard everyday and staying in shape in preparation of an eventual move.
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