on injuries....

before last night's game against saint joe's sharks, i got a bit carried away in a comment i wrote over at flamesnation, where pat steinberg got a bit carried away in complaining about the flames' injury woes.... let's face it, kids: higgins and glencross on the shelf can hardly be considered a predicament, and we're awfully lucky (compared to other teams and *ahem* what happened last year) that it's only two guys.....

anyhow, i saw steinberg's article as a precursor to future team post-mortems that excuse them from the postseason due to man-games lost.... anyhow, here's what i wrote (which, btw, became kindof eerie for a minute in the first period when wallin appeared to have injured kotalik on a hard, clean check ----but it turned out that #26 was healthy enough to continue with his particular brand of mediocrity)... :

*****

hmmmm.... i think i see where this is going.....

one of the top line guys (let's say bourque) will go out tonight on a huge, clean hit by "the big swede," nic wallin... the lines will get shuffled and mcG will draw in on sunday.... in THAT game, sarich will block a shot and we'll see pardy dress on tuesday, where hagman will head to the dressing room after an ugly knee-on-knee with corey perry... enter jaffray for the islanders match where we'll lose (sniff) gio on an indisputably dirty doug weight headshot. kronwall will get the callup for the flames v. bruins, and mcG will go out when lucic breaks his hand on grats' orbital bone (too bad nobody will see it cause it's a PPV).... higgins will return in washington where toskala will take a puck in the face leclaire styles (the headline will read "flames' backup takes semin shot in the eye") and we'll bring up shantz to mind the gate....

bored yet ?

lets see.... at month's end lombo will get his final revenge on the flames when he beats iggy to the icing call; our captain will go hard into the boards to end his season... johnny armstrong will get the nod and play just shy of a full period in colorado before re-injuring his everything, so chucko will get his last shot at making the bigs with the flames (before being traded and turning into a superstar) against the blackhawks on april 4th. that same game, in a totally freak play, nystrom will lose both an edge and his helmet, opening the door for bourque's triumphant return against the sharks at home two days later (where he'll go out yet again on another huge, clean hit by "the big swede," nic wallin)... brett sutter will hop a flight from abby to play against the wild, and accidentally injure robyn regehr following a mixup at the bench... keith seabrook (not to be mistaken for keith and seabrook) will suit up in a flaming c for the first time, in the last game of the year, where the flames' regulation loss will leave them in 9th spot, one point behind dustin boyd and the eighth place preds...

anyhow, if it doesn't go EXACTLY like that, then darryl sutter had better not blame "all of the injuries" for his team not making the postseason.

*****

i thought it was kindof fun(ny), anyways, so i figured i'd share it over here.

in other pat steinberg news, i was excessively amused to hear him refer to kent wilson as "kent nilsson" on the radio last night, and it turns out that the guy has never read either htp or the comments at M&G (or else he wouldn't have referred to me as a dude). not that it's a bad thing, i'm just sayin'....

welcome to the ASM, steinberg. i presume you're reading NOW.
:)