We couldn't have been more wrong.
It looks like more of the same for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And don't call us quitters but we don't see a franchise high 100+ points on their way to a fourth place finish this season with all of the injuries.
Jordan Staal will be out 3-4 weeks after colliding with Mike Rupp in the Penguins game against the New York Rangers and injuring his knee.
And then James Neal broke his foot. Yes, you read that right, BROKE HIS DAMN FOOT and is out indefinitely.
Then Craig Adams re-injured his knee colliding with Brooks Orpik during practice.
WHEN WILL IT STOP?!?!?!
It's beginning to be a little ridiculous.
Other injuries include Nicklas Backstrom taking an elbow to the mouth from Rene Bourque and suffering an apparent concussion.
NOT ANOTHER ONE!
Bourque was suspended for five games. Fine.
And this is not Bourque's first suspension this season. What gives? Why is this happening right now? Who knows but it's starting to get tiring.
Let's add Backstrom to the concussion list.
Along with Ottawa Senators defenseman Chris Phillips who is day-to-day with a mild concussion after a hit in their game against the New Jersey Devils.
Another injured player is Tom Gilbert from the Edmonton Oilers. The player who hit him, Daniel Carcillo, has been suspended for seven games.
Does anyone care about safety anymore? Jeez.
Oh, and here are a few other links that depressed us:
- The Toronto Maple Leafs placed Colton Orr on waivers and from Brian Burke's comments it sounded like he did it to make a point about enforcers being an antiquated position in this day's NHL.
- John Tortorella was fined for the comments he made about the officiating after last Monday's Winter Classic game.
Fining him just made the NHL seem guilty.
- The NHLPA has killed the realignment plan that was suppsoed to happen last season. Just another bad thing on the way to a dying CBA and negotiations coming soon.
- During the Vancouver Canucks / Boston Bruins fight-fest yesterday, the referee threw Milan Lucic out for 'leaving the bench on an illegal line change' to get into the scrum happening on the ice. It was a mistake as the league later found out and the automatic game misconduct and suspension was taken away.
- In the same game, Brad Marchand submarined Sami Salo and now faces a disciplinary hearing tomorrow.
Of course. It was stupid play and he should be punished.
Like we said, does anyone care anymore?
- And can we count a trade as bad news? The Lightning traded Blair Jones to the Calgary Flames for Brendan Mikkelson.
- We received an email a few days ago from Megan about ESPN's lack of coverage of hockey during their annual memoriam of important sports figures passings in the year. We know it's been some time since that happened but it's still making us angry.
Here is Megan's email to us:
What a joke! Not one of the players who died this summer were mentioned in their Memoriam. No major mention of concussions, WNBA players made the notable new comers list, but not the reigning Calder Memorial winner Jeff Skinner or runner up Logan Couture, they mentioned the NCAA football realignment but not the NHL's, not even Bobby-Lu's "Tire-pumping" made it into the quotes of the year section, even though it lead to a riot! What is it going to take for ESPN to take their heads out of their asses and show Hockey the respect it more than deserves!
"The Worldwide Leader in Sports" neglected to cover the death of an entire hockey team in a plane crash in its year in review, but found time to feature lines from Deion Sanders' NFL induction speech. Three times. SportsCenter doesn't care about hockey beyond Sidney Crosby and the team that wins the Stanley Cup. Everyone knows that, but completely ignoring what happened in Yaroslavl, the deaths of Rick, Derek, Wade and every other hockey figure who passed away this year is disgusting. But hey, we got a 5-minute segment about how exasperated ESPN's talking heads were over Tim Tebow's winning streak. So that's something. Sorry, didn't mean to rant, but come on! How much of a joke can one company be?
Some good news?
- Everyone's starting to love the secret Swede on the Ottawa Senators: Erik Karlsson. He's becoming quite the hit.
- Esbee sent us this video after Cam Ward scored his first NHL goal. He's an adorable human being.
- Shea Weber was cleared to land and we couldn't have been happier.
He made his first game back against the Dallas Stars.
- We love when stars from other sports love hockey.
Especially when they're good looking and have a nice bromance with some of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
- Sports Illustrated had the Top 15 Underrated Hockey Players. We agree with most of these except for Pavel Datsyuk because seriously, who doesn't know that this guy exists and what he brings to a team?
- Jarome Iginla finally got his 500th goal. Good cause we couldn't take much more of NHL Tonight mentioning it after every damn game the Flames played.
- And lastly, congratulations to Shane Doan's first NHL hat trick after sixteen seasons.
Seriously, we were actually cheering for this when we saw the highlights last night. What a human and what a reaction.
We apologize for this post but we're frustrated and have been for a while. It's our way to vent.
Let us know what's bothering you. Vent away and we shall reply in the comments section.
6 comments:
I am flipping out over Jordan Staal getting hurt. FLIPPING OUT. And then when I read about James Neal...OY. I have a rule...Don't Break the Staal. And people are not obeying it.
Oh and I don't LIKE Daniel Carcillo but don't forget he is not only suspended but he is hurt as well.
I am to the point where a guy just goes down from a regular hit and I gasp. I spend half the games I attend in a pose that looks like prayer.
OH! And since I am posting this tonight after the Blackhawks/Wings game I can freak out that PATRICK SHARP got hurt tonight too.
MAKE IT STOP.
(on the non-sucky front, glad you liked Wardo.)
I forgot to vent! I am still freaking PISSED off that Andy Sutton broke Jeff Skinner. He is getting closer to coming back but still. At the beginning of the season I told my bro that he was gonna get hurt this season. I KNEW IT. We got clobbered last night by the Preds and we NEED Brian Freaking Boucher back.
I am sick of losing...we are REALLY good at it and can't play two games back to back without looking like completely different teams. And I know change is coming but I KNOW they are going to trade a player that is going to make me really mad.
AND Coach Foxy is starting to look worn out and tired. My boys are KILLING HIS LOOKS.
What did we do to piss the hockey gods off??? as a pens fan it's breaking my heart to see all these injuries, maybe we need to get rid of those jinx-tastic dark blue jerseys and get Shero to sacrifice a virgin to the hockey gods or something. Please let Malkin stay healthy!!!
The key to why players keep injuring themselves and/or each other is simple, timeless and classic. If you understand what makes men tick, you have to admit this makes sense. It's okay. I'm saying it, not you. So you can feel free to agree:
** They aren't masturbating enough;
** They're masturbating and they're trying to hide it; or
** They're masturbating but not dealing with the aftermath effectively.
If they beat themselves off guilt-free and more efficiently off the ice, they wouldn't feel so compelled to beat the shit out of each other at work. Good LORD DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING HERE?! Why won't people just tell it like it is? They need to be busted wide open. Then this bullshit would stop for good.
Free Jizzles for everybody in the NHL ("Now that's something your Mom's bathrobe ISN'T gonna do...") On me. Want it to stop? Oh it'll stop. You'll see. And gimme those shoulder pads!!! Ridiculous. You don't need those. Man up.
As for ESPN, when NBC bumps the Winter Classic to the day AFTER New Year's so as not to interfere with America's Football Ways, that should tell you everything you'll ever need to know about this country's existing and future relationship with hockey. Sorry, but it's fact. Don't wait around for the mainstream media to "get" hockey 'cause it ain't gonna happen. Hey - their loss, and more for you!
You're welcome and yeah, it sucks. Big time.
I am trying to keep my comments shorter for 2012 so here goes:
UUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!
I agree with all the venting!
Y'all may have injured players on your teams but I've got Kardashians to worry about. That's worse than any injury because injuries heal but the herp & E channel shows are FOREVER!
Also in Stars news...Mike Ribeiro has a slight tear of his MCL & will not play tonight. Lego was placed on the IR with an 'upper body injury' but we all heard Coach Gully use the 'C' word when talking about him so...sad face.
@Aussiegal - If you think you can catch the Nuge or Jeff Skinner, I'm sure Uncle Ray would be happy to sacifice one of them to the hockey gods.
I'm sorry everyone is broken & hope they get better soon.
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