Michael Russo's Sunday Insider: NHL stars 'dropping like flies'

Grant Halverson, Getty Images

Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin is just one of many NHL stars sidelined right now.

An epidemic of injuries has struck some of the NHL's best players, which should be a worry to the league.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Last update: November 9, 2009 - 6:21 AM

Imagine shelling out $131.50 for one ticket behind the Vancouver net, and you don't get to see Daniel Sedin, Roberto Luongo and six other Canucks regulars.

Imagine spending $235 to sit center ice lower bowl at an Edmonton Oilers game, and you don't get to see eight regulars, including Shawn Horcoff and Sheldon Souray.

You go to a Pittsburgh Penguins game, and no Evgeni Malkin, Sergei Gonchar or Maxime Talbot. A Washington Capitals game, and no Alex Ovechkin. A Chicago Blackhawks game, and no Jonathan Toews or Marian Hossa. A Boston Bruins game, and no Marc Savard or Milan Lucic. A Carolina Hurricanes game, and no Eric Staal. An Atlanta Thrashers game, and no Ilya Kovalchuk. A New Jersey Devils game, and no Patrik Elias, Paul Martin and ...

"Our team's dropping like flies," Brian Rolston texted me after scoring a big goal in Wednesday's win over the Ovechkin-less Capitals.

The Devils aren't alone. Edmonton, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Nashville, Columbus and St. Louis also are decimated by injuries. Colorado and Detroit have a laundry list, too.

According to tsn.ca Friday, 126 players in the NHL were either sick or injured. Remember, the maximum amount of players that can be on 30 active rosters at once is 690 (23 per team). That's 18.3 percent of the roster space sidelined due to injuries or illness, either short term or long term.

Yes, you can put players on injured reserve, but that means some teams are paying 27-30 players NHL salaries at a given time. That's killing some team's budgets, and putting some teams at or above the salary cap (including long-term injury status).

Big names are gone everywhere. Not just the names above, but Montreal's Andrei Markov, Nashville's Shea Weber and Martin Erat, Philadelphia's Simon Gagne and Daniel Briere, Detroit's Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula, Florida's David Booth, Columbus' Kristian Huselius and Fredrik Modin, San Jose's Joe Pavelski and Devin Setoguchi and, of course, the Wild's Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Kim Johnsson.

The list goes on and on and on.

The NHL comes to a halt in February so players can partake in the Olympics. Imagine being Russia, which feels it can compete for gold and seeing that at once Ovechkin, Malkin, Gonchar, Markov and Kovalchuk are out?

There's no statistic that shows there are more injuries than normal right now. But it seems an epidemic because there's such a large list of big names out.

Players today seem so much more taxed than previous years. Just turn on NHL Network and watch a classic game from the 1970s and 1980s. It looks in slow motion. There were no graphite sticks, so players weren't being struck as often with howitzers. The schedule wasn't as condensed, either.

And because you can't hold guys up on the forecheck anymore, today's checks are power-packed. Two hundred-pound guys are skating into other players at 30 miles per hour. Just ask former Gopher and longtime NHLer Tom Chorske, who while sitting on the glass Thursday night had a beer land over his pants, shoes, and, painfully, eyes when Cal Clutterbuck finished a check.

The league wanted to rid itself of clutching and grabbing. Now all the speeding bullets seem to be putting players into the medical room.

Injuries have always been part of hockey, but unless there's going to be a bunch of rule regressions, size limitations and bigger ice surfaces (and there won't be), the rash of injuries may be unavoidable.

"The guys have gotten bigger, stronger, faster, but the ice hasn't gotten any bigger," Wild coach Todd Richards said. "So the cage has stayed the same size, just the animals inside the cage have gotten bigger and faster."

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