Oh, look at that! The Windy City’s hockey darlings, those ever-struggling Chicago Blackhawks, have managed a shadow of a victory on the injury front. Nick Foligno’s busted digit and Ryan Donato’s mystery malaise have lost the battle against their resilient human vessels, and both gents were spotted doing twirls on the team’s chilly rehearsal stage come Sunday. And let’s not leave out the Cameo Crowd: Connor “Glass Jaw” Bedard, Samuel “What’s My Leg Saying” Savoie, and the elusive Tyler “Where It Hurts” Johnson all mustered enough strength to tiptoe onto the ice before the main act commenced. Alas, Connor Murphy, with his rebellious lower-body, remained a dramatic no-show, haunting the treatment room instead.
Mr. Donato bid adieu to the Hawks’ last couple of engagements due to his affliction, while Mr. Foligno has been gone an ungodly seven games, stumbling onto injured reserve earlier when the month was still young and hopeful. The duo’s soon-anticipated resurgence has the beleaguered Chicago roster whispering sweet hopeful nothings, considering it’s been shouldering an injury burden spread across ten souls. On that fateful evening when Foligno joined the fallen and Bedard’s jaw decided it had enough, the Blackhawks’ upper ranks splintered, leaving them to hobble through a 3-4-0 phase. This escapade featured a shootout and an overtime soirée, squeezing out a paltry thirteen goals ever since. For those crunching the numbers, that’s a dismal 1.85 per game, propped up meagerly by a duo of four-goal fiestas bereft of Bedard’s prowess.
Now, switching gears to the broader thespians of the big leagues:
Ville Husso, Detroit’s guardian of the twine, is tasting the ice once again, despite whatever lower-body shenanigans have been afoot. Yet, the Red Wings find their bench lacking the likes of Patrick Kane and Ben Chiarot, each tangled up in their respective body conundrums – lower and upper, as if to maintain cosmic balance. Husso’s absence, clocking in at fourteen performances since mid-December, has thrust the spotlight upon Alex Lyon and his .922 save percentage across sixteen appearances, with James Reimer playing second fiddle, amassing an .893 in thirteen curtain calls.
And then there’s Pierre Engvall, donning the fashion-forward non-contact ensemble as he flits across the New York Islanders’ practice pond. After skipping two games courtesy of his uppity upper-body, this chap has tallied a modest 14 points in his 41 bouts of on-ice heroics, with a scoreboard presence as cold as the ice – only one point since December 9th! His tenure with the Islanders is still fresh from a trade with Toronto, and boy, what a rollercoaster of mediocrity it’s been.
So there you have it, a tapestry of tales from the sometimes grim, sometimes hopeful, but always slippery and cold world of professional hockey. Keep your sticks on the ice and your injury reports close – you never know when you’ll need a good understudy.