Setbacks and Opportunities

The Islanders haven't even played a pre-season game yet, and they already have injury problems.

Mark Streit: Shoulder surgery, out for 6 months.

Kyle Okposo: Shoulder surgery, out for 2 months.

That's 100-120 man games lost to injury, and the season is still two weeks away. Feel free to insert your own joke about how Rick DiPietro's inevitable injury will cause those numbers to skyrocket.

If you're the Islanders, you might think about ratcheting expectations down a little bit. But you can you do that when your ticket prices are at an all-time high? Like it or not, injuries to your two best players don't make it okay to miss the playoffs again. Instead, the Islanders will need players - both the big names and the unknown ones - to step up.

These injuries to Streit and Okposo are devastating, but they also provide a tremendous opportunity to guys like Calvin de Haan, Nino Niederreiter, Travis Hamonic and countless others, including the newly-acquired Mike Mottau. These players now have the chance to step up and make a significant impact on the big club. It's also an opportunity for players like John Tavares and Josh Bailey to take a more active role in the leadership of this club.

Feel free to wallow a bit - after all, a 2010 without Mark Streit and Kyle Okposo is hardly what you expected. But life goes on, and so do the Islanders' playoff chances - and the expectations that they'll be significantly better than the draft lottery. The lost production and leadership of Streit and Okposo has to come from somewhere, and it'll be very interesting and exciting to see who steps up.

Injuries

I've been thinking a lot about injuries lately. Namely, the paradox that exists in sports today. Players are in better shape than ever. They train harder in the off-season than they do during the regular season. Teams employ nutritionists to help players stay on specific diets. The players of today are not only bigger than ever, but faster than ever. And yet, despite all of this, players get hurt today more than ever before.

There are a number of theories attempting to explain this, the obvious one being steroids. That explains why a 38-year-old slugger breaks down in record time, but it doesn't explain why both the Islanders and Mets have had literally more than half their team on the DL at any given point in 2009. A more plausible theory states that the collisions caused when two large, fast athletes run into each other creates a far more severe impact than in the past. We'll come back to this in a little bit. Another theory would be that doctors know more about the after-effects of injuries and prevent athletes from returning from injuries too soon. And, of course, the final theory is that modern players are pampered babies who only care about their paychecks. What's the answer? I don't know.

In the end, it would seem that a lot of this is luck. The Mets were relatively healthy, Pedro Martinez notwithstanding, for much of the past three seasons. This season, they more than made up for their good fortune. While the Mets put $90 million of their payroll on the DL, the Yankees have had virtually no injury troubles this year outside of Alex Rodriguez and Xavier Nady. That's life, especially in baseball, where injuries are almost always incurred outside of person-to-person contact.

But what about hockey? Can you really separate the fact that the Islanders lost over 500 man games to injury in 2008-09 from the fact that they had zero toughness in the lineup on most nights? And can we ignore the fact that the Anaheim Ducks, who routinely lead the league in fighting majors, are the NHL's third-least injured team since the lockout? Yes, luck does play a role, and the top teams usually do a good job of avoiding injuries. But that doesn't mean a team shouldn't use any and all means available to them to avoid injuries. And if avoiding injuries means dressing a goon that actually plays more than two minutes a night, then that's a chance Scott Gordon should consider taking.

Here's the other thing. If we can agree that injuries are getting more frequent, and we can agree that injuries are getting more serious, and we can also agree that injuries in the NHL are preventable on some level, then we can go so far as to state that teams who don't do everything possible to avoid serious injuries are being negligent in protecting their players. Let's face it, hockey is a violent game. Always has been, always will be. And if you watch a game from fifteen or so years ago, you'll see a lot of open ice. That open ice hasn't been taken up by huge pads, it's been taken up by huge players who move a lot faster than they used to and hit a lot harder than they used to. The team that doesn't protect itself takes a serious chance, not only of injury, but of something far more serious than that.

***

If you saw last year's AFC Championship Game between the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, odds are good you remember the hit Willis McGahee took at the end of that game. We had people over that day, and some of us were convinced that he actually died after that hit. Turns out he's fine. But he's been demoted to Baltimore's second string and it doesn't even bother him - he's just glad to be healthy. That's not the point. Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer was quoted as saying he believes someone will die as the result of a hit during an NFL game. This is a conclusion I have come to myself, and an on-ice fatality in the NHL isn't as far off as people think.

Over the past five years, we've had the Steve Moore incident and the Richard Zednik incident. We've also had Don Sanderson, who died during a fight, but not in the NHL. Despite all this, NHL players refuse to take even the simplest measures to protect themselves. Players wear their helmet chin straps as loose as possible, don't bother to wear face shields, and choose not to wear neck guards, all in the name of masculinity and "The Code", whatever that means. And that's a shame. We all know the NHL will turn a blind eye to all of this until it's too late. And it'd be nice if the Player's Association could get its head out of its ass long enough to ensure the safety of its players, but that won't happen either. Of course, the one player who takes a stand will be mocked for doing so, just as baseball players, writers and fans alike mocked David Wright for wearing a large, but safe, batting helmet last week.

***

The point is, this injury epidemic is manifesting itself with random injuries that might seem insignificant, but seem to be building toward larger problems. These are problems nobody seems interested in solving right now. And it seems hypocritical to say that the solution to injuries is to bring in goons, but if that stops even one opposing player from taking a run at your star player, then that's one less injury you have to worry about. Those who argue against the instigator rule are on the right track. More fighting certainly isn't the answer, but at least then the violence is limited to the willing. We don't need tough guys injuring skill players anymore. Hockey has made great strides since the lockout. Let's ensure that the next time the NHL makes big news, it isn't because someone got blindsided and is seriously injured - or worse.

Random Musings

Random musings while watching the Jets score three touchdowns in a six-play span, with only one of them counting...

- I was talking with my buddy Rich at work last week about the Islanders' new goal song. He said something like, "I'm sure it's wonderful. Too bad we won't hear it until their third home game."

Well, then.

Last night's first period would have to rank up there with any period of hockey this team played last season. They just did everything right. The four goals were wonderful, but that only tells part of the story. The players just played. They didn't spend two minutes on the power play looking for the perfect shot. They reacted to the situations that presented themselves, didn't think too much, and simply tried to do their best to keep things going. It worked. Nobody tried to do too much. Every hit was finished. Opporunities were cashed in, the Coliseum was rocking, and everybody was happy.

The other two periods weren't like this, and I'll attribute that to the three-goal lead. You can't help but change the way you play when you've got a considerable lead, even if going more conservative isn't the best idea. But that's a good problem to have. So, heading into tomorrow's game, the challenge is to keep up the intensity we saw during the first 20 minutes last night. This time, though, let's hope it stays around for the duration of the game.

As for the actual goal song itself... it works. Not saying I'm going to download the MP3 or anything, but they could have done worse. It just reminds me too much of the Rangers' goal song - and that's not good.

- Lots of good stuff coming out of last night's broadcast, but the best part was the coverage of the Rick DiPietro injury and the TSN story about swelling around his injured knee. Both Howie and Billy insinuated that the report was false, stating that if DP wasn't healthy enough to be a backup, he wouldn't have dressed for the game. They also went on to slam the league's new injury policy, which lets teams choose how they want to disclose player injuries. Howie suggested that these not-so-reliable reports will become the norm now that there will be so much speculation about injuries. And he's right.

This new policy isn't really going to solve much. One one hand, you're not going to hear stupid things like "upper body injury" and "general body soreness" anymore. But on the other, teams are going to keep as much in-house as they possibly can, and now that they aren't required to disclose anything, they're not going to. How many teams are going to volunteer that their players are banged-up if they don't have to?

There's no real right answer for how to handle injury information. But I don't think this is any better than the old way. If anything, it's worse.

- Last night's entertainment was the band Seven Mary Three. Which would have been great if this was 1995. Hey, if we could get Bill Guerin and Doug Weight back to 1995, that would be really great. We can only hope they played "Cumbersome", their one big hit. Still, I guess they were a better choice than the crappy cover bands that used to play at every game a couple of years ago. The same can't be said for Kevin Connelly at the opening faceoff. Now, I don't watch "Entourage" or anything, but I'm sick of seeing the same people over and over again. Speaking of ubiquitous celebrity fans, Christie Brinkley sure disappeared quickly, didn't she?

- Is it just me, or is scoring way up around the league this year? I know it's way too early to tell, but I think the modifications made to the goalie equipment are having an impact. Saves that used to be easy ones are now a little trickier, and even the shots goalies stop are finding their way into the net. Time will tell if this is just a temporary thing or if goalies will adjust as the season progresses, but it's been enjoyable so far. On the topic of the season's first weekend, I've watched a fair amount of hockey, but I have yet to see my first fight of the season.

- Tomorrow is Columbus Day, which means you may or may not be stuck at work tomorrow. If you are, check out NHL GameCenter, which is free until the 15th. The game broadcast will almost certainly be blacked out because it's a local game, but you can at least follow along. If NHL.com is blocked at work, you should be able to find a game tracker on CBS Sportsline. Feel free to post any other sites that will let you follow the game. And if these options fail you, do the right thing - call in sick.

EDIT: I forgot a couple of things. First, MSG Plus dropped the ball yet again last night with the lack of pre-game show. So we miss an entire period of play on Friday and we don't even get a pre-game show before our home opener. That's nice. Secondly, I think my daughter has a crush on Martin Brodeur. She kept smiling while his interview with Stan Fischler on NHL On The Fly. I'm officially worried. I'd sooner her have a crush on The Hockey Maven himself.