Players number 9 and 10 currently out with injury are David Van Der Gulik with a torn MCL and TJ Galiardi with a broken wrist. I guess if you wanted to find a bright side, it's not another concussion. Earlier today the Avs announced that Kyle Quincey is out indefinitely with a concussion, making him the 4th Avs player currently out with such an injury. This of course comes on the tail of losing Ryan Wilson to a leg injury which comes on the tail of losing Kyle Cumiskey to a concussion. The Avs players are dropping left and right and at this rate Lake Erie is going to have to suspend operations when their entire roster ends up in Denver (what happens when the farm team's farm team is all called up? Do we start suiting up the fans?).
For tonight's game the Avalanche dressed 4 rookie defensemen who had played in less than 10 games each: Holos (9 games), Liffiton (3 games), Shattenkirk (2 games) and Cohen (1 game). The addition of Cohen and Shattenkirk (both 21) and Kevin Porter (24) lowered the average age of the Avalanche to make them the youngest team in the NHL. In fact, they have only three players on the roster over the age of 30 with Hejduk, Hannan and Grahame. Given the Avs' not-so-hot start to the season defensively, this could ultimately be a good thing for them. At the very least their young D is getting some great NHL experience.
After losing two forwards to injury tonight, the Avs will be forced to call more players up from Lake Erie to fill in the voids on the roster. Both injuries are likely going to be longer-term and are currently listed as indefinite. At this point, it doesn't look like any of the injured players are very likely to return in the next game or two. Ryan Wilson's injury has not been clearly defined (big surprise) and he could be day-to-day. David Jones' hand injury is also a day-to-day thing (he practiced yesterday with the team in an orange non-contact jersey). Adam Foote is getting closer to a return as he skated for a solid 30-45 minutes prior to the rest of the team's practice yesterday.
Some of the injuries are not the sort of thing you could blame on conditioning, Galiardi's broken wrist being a prime example (he was checked into the boards and got his hand caught between his body and the glass at the wrong angle). However, with 10 players out of the lineup with various injuries, you have to start to wonder, is there something wrong with what the training staff is doing for the team? For the last several years, the Avs have had injury after injury and it has felt like the number of injuries has been beyond the level of normal hockey injuries. Hockey is a rough sport, ask anyone who has played it (I've personally had a concussion from being boarded), injuries are bound to happen. It just gets to a certain extent where you have to wonder, is it just bad luck or is there something that could or should be changed?
It's not time to panic and give up on the season for the Avs. It's still plenty early in the season and if you're going to have a lot of injuries, you'd always prefer them to happen early, rather than late. Several of the players out right now could be out fairly long-term, but it's really hard to say with those head injuries (I suffered post-concussion symptoms for years and sometimes wonder if I still do). It's getting to the point where you just kind of hold your breath every time a player gets hit kind of hard (in 2-3 days are they going to come out and say he has a concussion?!) or is a little slow to get up after blocking a shot. Hopefully the luck will turn around and players will start getting healthy, but until then, I guess we can just enjoy this sneak preview of players who will probably be making the roster in a year or two out of training camp.
*Not to be missed amongst all the bad news, Chris Stewart scored his 100th career point tonight when he netted a power play goal for the Avs in the third period. He's also one away from his 50th career goal now.*
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