Brian39
Registered User
- Apr 24, 2014
- 7,580
- 14,246
The bolded is pretty disingenuous. If Tarasenko's injury doesn't count as a top 6 injury because you are using the projected forward group without him, then you have to actually look at the projected forward group without him and treat the guys who were in the top 6 as our top 6 players. You don't get to ignore Tarasenko's injury AND claim that guys playing in the top 6 as a result are actually bottom 6 guys.Injuries to bottom 6 players don't make a contending team post bottom 10 possession and xG metrics. Schwartz and Parayko are the only top 6/top4 players going into the season that missed significant time. There's no guarantee that Tarasenko becomes the same player he used to be, and the collection of Sundqvist, Bozak, Thomas, Gunnarsson, and Barbashev don't have the NHL impact that you can say really derailed the season. The guys who should be driving the play were healthy the whole year. This is the result.
Our 2nd line on opening night was Schwartz-Thomas-Sunny. They missed 16, 28, and 23 games respectively. Our top 6 forwards by average TOI this year has been ROR, Perron, Schwartz, Schenn, Tarasenko and Sunny. When you look at the guys Berube most leans on when they are in the lineup up, 3 of the 6 missed significant time throughout the year and two of them are currently out (including the team's leading scorer).
In addition, our injuries were pretty damn center-heavy. We missed significant time from Bozak, Thomas, Sunny and Barby with a good chunk of overlap between injuries. Those were the guys penciled in to be our 2nd, 3rd and 4th line centers going in to the season (plus a winger who routinely slots in at center when injuries hit). Again, if we're judging the quality of injuries using the standard of the roster construction going into the year, that is a colossal combination of losses. Bozak gets hurt in game 7 and Thomas in game 12. Barbie gets hurt in game 17 and suddenly you've lost 75% of your opening night centers in a 10 game stretch. We have pretty great center depth, but that is undeniably a significant blow to any team.
I agree with your overall opinion that injuries alone didn't take us from contender-to-bottom-10. But it is silly to act like we just suffered injuries to unimportant players and that the important parts remained healthy. We missed the 2nd most man-games to injury this year and that included long-term absences from 3 forwards that the coach uses as top 6 quality forwards. Every middle 6 and bottom 6 center missed substantial time and 2 guys who have been undisputed top 6 wingers for years missed substantial time.
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