Around The Rink 01.22.08: Falling All-Stars

Posted by Jeremy Yoder on 01.22.2008

Around The Rink this week, being an All-Star means being injured, a Bruin heads into hibernation and a capital loss for Washington. Also in this edition, the Western Conference’s Northwest Division is as tight a division as you’ll find in the NHL and I’ll provide an update on the past week in Pittsburgh Penguins news.

Main Topics...

As we approach the All-Star game on January the 27th, a couple more players on the All-Star rosters will not be able to participate. The first of those players is Paul Stastny. The young star forward from the Colorado Avalanche will be out for 2-3 weeks after having surgery to remove his appendix. Stastny is the leading scorer for the Avalanche with 49 points. He was also selected to his first All-Star game, which he will miss due to the surgery. To my knowledge, they have not yet named his replacement in the All-Star game.

The other All-Star injury came to a player of slightly more prominence than Mr. Stastny. Sidney Crosby was injured Friday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He was drug down while chasing a puck beside the Lightning goal and went into the boards feet first. His right skate got wedged between the ice and the boards causing his foot to turn in a very precarious manner. Crosby was helped off the ice by trainers and did not return to the game. He also did make the trip with the team to Montreal on Saturday.

The diagnosis as of right now is that he has a high-ankle sprain. However, he is scheduled to have an MRI done on that ankle. The MRI was supposed to have been done on Monday, but that did not happen due to there being too much swelling. A replacement for Crosby has not yet been named to the All-Star game. Crosby and Stastny join Dany Heatley as players that will not participate in the All-Star game due to injury.

In an additional side-note on the All-Star game, Jarome Iginla and Vincent Lecavalier have been named the captains of their respective teams for the game. Iginla will represent the Western Conference as their captain and Lecavalier the Eastern Conference.

Injuries are what the "Main Topics" section of this week's Around The Rink edition is about. Aside from injuries to some of the All-Stars, there was other significant injury news this week as well. The first announcement came out of Boston with an update on injured center Patrice Bergeron. Bergeron was classified as having suffered a Grade 3 concussion on October 27 when he took a heavy hit from Randy Jones of the Philadelphia Flyers. The hit was classified as a hit from behind and Jones was suspended for 2 games. Bergeron has not played since. He was starting to undergo conditioning when he began to digress again. Now Bruins officials are telling TSN that they have sent Bergeron on vacation and are considering shutting him down for the rest of the season.

To me, giving Bergeron the rest of the year off makes good sense. Bergeron is young and will be an impact player for years to come. Couple that with the fact that the Bruins are playing good hockey right now anyway and I think you have to sit him for the rest of the season. It would definitely be looking to the future. You can never be too careful with concussions.

The other big injury news comes out of Washington where the recently surging Capitals have lost their second-leading scorer, Michael Nylander, for the season. Nylander had been playing since early December with a sore shoulder. It finally became too much to bear this past week and he will undergo season ending surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder.

This is very bad news for the Capitals who have started to play good hockey lately going 8-2-2 over the course of their last 12 games. Their play has been strong enough to bring them into third with 47 points in a weak Southeast division. They also have three games in hand over each of the two teams in front of them in the standings, the Thrashers and the Hurricanes. Hopefully this injury will not slow them down, but it will definitely make things tougher for the Caps.

One Point Separates First and Fourth In The Northwest

The Western Conference's Northwest Division, while not the best in hockey, is the tightest division in hockey. There are two teams tied for first with 56 points, the Colorado Avalanche and the Calgary Flames, and two teams tied for second with 55 points, the Minnesota Wild and the Vancouver Canucks. Since the Avalanche have played one less game than the Flames, that makes them dog top in this division. We'll begin by looking at them first.

The Avalanche suffered a big loss to their team earlier this week when they learned that their leading scorer, Paul Stastny, for 2-3 weeks. This comes not long after captain Joe Sakic underwent hernia surgery on December, 28 and is expected to be out 2-3 months. Missing both of these players will really hurt this team, but they have a decent enough supporting cast that they should stay afloat in this division. Players like Milan Hejduk, Wojtek Wolski, Ryan Smyth, Andrew Brunette and Marek Svatos will need to step up their efforts to keep the offense going. The emphasis of the Avalanche seems to be team defense. They have only eight players on their roster with a +/- rating in the negative. Of those eight players, the worst is Scott Hannan with a -6. That's not bad at all. In net, time is being split between Jose Theodore and Peter Budaj. Both goalies have pretty good numbers and seem to be getting the job collectively done. This division is going to be tight to the finish and I don't know if the Avalanche will stay on top. I did say they would stay afloat though and I think they will finish second in this division.

In second place in this division is the Calgary Flames. The Flames are led, of course, by Jarome Iginla. That hasn't changed. The players around him haven't changed this year either. Second on the team in scoring is Kristian Huselius, third is Daymond Langkow and fourth is Alex Tanguay. Huselius had a great year in Calgary last year posting 34 goals and 43 assists for 77 points in 81 games, all career highs. He has picked up right where he left off this year and currently has 21 goals and 28 assists. Langkow is much the same story scoring career highs in goals with 33, assists with 44 and points with 77 last year in Calgary. He also has picked right back up this year tallying 20 goals and 25 assists for 45 points so far this season. Both players are on pace to set career highs for themselves this year. The defense continues to be anchored by youngster Dion Phaneuf. He also has an outstanding supporting cast though in Adrian Aucoin, Robyn Regehr, Cory Sarich and Rhett Warrener. The biggest news for the Flames though came in an announcement about their goaltending. The Flames signed a very reliable backup this past week when they inked Curtis Joseph to a one year deal. That will help bring stability to the team when Miikka Kiprusoff needs a rest or if, God forbid, the Kipper gets injured. However, I look for this Flames team to stay on a roll and win this division this year.

Since the Minnesota Wild have played on less game than the Vancouver Canucks, they own the third spot in the division. The Wild are a team that seem to have problems with consistency. They especially seem to have problems playing consistent defense, a surprise under defensive-minded head coach Jacques Lemaire. If the Wild can get consistent with their defense, they will be a team to be reckoned with in this division. Marian Gaborik is having a good year with 25 goals and 25 assists for 50 points. Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Brian Rolston and Eric Belanger are not having bad years either. Pavol Demitra is not having a great season which has to be upsetting for Wild fans. He should be one of their top two or three leading scorers, but he hasn't even netted 10 goals yet this year. In net, it's been kind of a revolving door with Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding popping in and out. Both have played decently, but seem to have a penchant for frequently having off games. That could be due to the lack of consistent defensive play. I look for the Wild to drop a position and finish in fourth in this division. I think that they are too inconsistent to remain in the top three.

Currently holding the fourth spot in the division are the Vancouver Canucks. The times they are a changing and that is no more evident than in Vancouver. Markus Naslund is not leading the team in scoring this year. He isn't even second. He is actually in third behind the twins, the Sedin twins, that is. Henrik currently leads brother Daniel by two points. Both players are on pace for career years. While the Canucks have played some good hockey this year, they are currently a team on the slide losing six of their last nine games. The team still has the best goalie in the league and a pretty good group of defensemen. Every team goes through ups and downs throughout the season and I think this is just one of those skids. The Canucks really haven't had one all year and I think they will pull it back together and play some good hockey down the stretch. Look for this team to fill in the number four spot in this division.

Bringing up the rear of this division are the Edmonton Oilers. They're only six points out of fourth, but they've also played at least two more games than each of the teams in front of them. The Oilers are being carried by Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky. They may be getting some help though. Dustin Penner seems to finally be coming around in his new Edmonton home. Outside of those three, the scoring is pretty sparse on the Oilers team. Dwayne Roloson has been disappointing this year carrying a losing record so far. Mathieu Garon has been receiving a lot of the work lately and has been posting better numbers than Roloson. This Oilers team is missing better balance up front though. Without the amazing goaltending they've gotten in past years from Roloson, this team is less than average. They will continue to struggle this year and will finish last in this division.

Weekly Pens Update

The Pens have split games since the last blog I wrote. They were on the receiving end of a 3-0 shutout at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning and were on the giving end of a 2-0 shutout of the Montreal Canadiens. They've also been on the receiving end of more injuries, one of which is far worse than any other they've experienced so far. As I mentioned above, Sidney Crosby left the Lightning game in the first period with an ankle injury of some sort. Hopefully the MRI reveals that it is "only" a high ankle sprain and nothing more. Either way, I think Sid is going to be on the shelf for a while and the Pens are going to have to really reach down and find ways to win games. They did just that against the Montreal Canadiens.

During the Canadiens game, the Pens lost a couple of more forwards in Adam Hall and, more importantly, Colby Armstrong. Armstrong was injured on a play very similar to the one that injured Sidney Crosby. However, it wasn't his foot or ankle that got injured. It was his hip. He fell on it very hard and left the game with what was diagnosed as a contusion. I haven't heard anything more about his injury at this time. Hopefully he won't be gone long. The Pens need him in their lineup to play along side Evgeni Malkin.

Tyler Kennedy also did not play against the Canadiens. There was no word exactly as to why only that he was not healthy enough to play.

The injuries are really starting to pile up on this team. First it was Max Talbot, who has since returned, then it was Marc-Andre Fleury, who is still out, then Mark Eaton, then Gary Roberts, then Sidney Crosby and now Colby Armstrong. All of these players are very important players to the Penguins and not having them in the lineup is going to make things tough on the ‘guins. Eaton is out for the season as he went under the knife recently to repair his torn ACL. I'm still not sure what the official report on Roberts is, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was out for the season with his broken leg. Fleury should be back, solely by my estimation, in mid-February. Obviously the worst injury of all is to the league's best player and I fear that Sidney Crosby is going to be out for a while.

To fill the spots of all the injured players, Ryan Stone, Tim Brent, Chris Minard and Jonathan Filewich have been called up from the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Baby Penguins. All of these guys are forwards as the only defensemen injured is Mark Eaton. Filling his spot, quite effectively I might add, in the lineup has been Darryl Sydor. I say filling his spot because before Eaton got injured, Sydor was spending a decent amount of time in the press box. Since his return to the ice though, he has been playing very well. The season has already been a wild one and with all the injuries it is only going to get more wild!

Random Thoughts

"…all men are created equal…" is a part of our Declaration of Independence. Some might argue that America has lost sight of that value. I argue that we have not. All men are, in fact, created equal. However, in America, after creation, little equality is maintained. Politicians lie, cheat and steal and still hold office. CEO's and other high-ranking officers in big corporations do the same and little is done. Athletes and celebrities break laws daily and receive slaps on their wrists. Recently, it was revealed that the CEO of the company that I currently work for was convicted in a $277 million lawsuit. He is individually responsible for 30% of that $277 million. Was he fired? Of course not. We received an email stating that his lawyers were appealing the ruling. This is outrageous for a couple of reasons. First off, this man makes more money in one year than I make in five to ten years. Second off, if I was convicted of something that garnered a write-up in a national publication, I am certain that I would be relieved of my duties with the company. I understand that true equality is something that we'll probably never see, but equality in the justice system would be a good start.

More Next Tuesday...

I'll be back next week with another column. Please send any comments, questions, suggestions or a topic that would interest you to [e-mail].