AHL- Apolyton Hockey League III-- Olympic edition

[Asher]

No goal posts have been moved.

Playing 70+ games is nothing unusual for an NHL player.

Hemsky is missing a siginificant number of games in your count (60 of 97) due to he and the team electing to have a shoulder repaired early in a season.

An event in a single season does not make a player injury prone.

This discussion is patently ridiculous...so I'm going to just recap.

Hemsky is...
1) A player who has never in his entire career played a full NHL season
2) A player who has missed 24% of all NHL games in the past 5 seasons, since the NHL lockout

This is not a single event. He's clearly injury prone.

There's really no room for further discussion

[notyoueither]

Yes, it is ridiculous.

You ignore that he has played 81 games. You ignore that ~half or more of top NHL players do not play 82 games in any given season.

You quote stats that consist two-thirds of a single event and claim it is a trend.

I am glad that you see no further room for discussion.

[Asher]

Yes, there's no way Hemsky could be considered injury prone, you're right. The dozen or so individual injuries, the fact that he has never completed a full season, and the 24% missed-game rate definitely indicates he is a robust, not-at-all-injury-prone player.

You have very, very low standards for player durability.

[Asher]

I'm curious, which NHL players are injury prone in your view? The list must be incredibly short.

[notyoueither]

Gaborik would be the poster boy.

10, 20, 30 games missed over and over again with the same area of the body definitely counts.

Souray would be an injury prone player currently with the Oilers. He has done OK two seasons out of the last four, but suffers injuries due to how he plays the game and his age. Not to mention the brace that he needs to play with, but takes off to fight.

I was/am concerned about Hemsky and his shoulders. However, he got his right one fixed after the 08 season. He is getting the left one fixed now, and has ample time for proper rehab. This isn't the seventies. Joint injuries do not end careers generally.

Maybe Guy will chirp up on the topic.

[Guynemer]

Only if you buy my wife's book, you cheap bastard.

[Asher]

Having surgery on a shoulder doesn't just "fix it". It repairs it, but repairs are usually not as good as having a good shoulder to start with.

[notyoueither]

Only if you buy my wife's book, you cheap bastard.

I'll certainly consider it.

Having surgery on a shoulder doesn't just "fix it". It repairs it, but repairs are usually not as good as having a good shoulder to start with.

These days ortho often can make a joint stronger than before.

[notyoueither]

Four!

[Asher]

Luongo the most overrated player, Edmonton the 4th worst franchise in the league according to NHL players...

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=315609

BEST PLAYER
Alex Ovechkin 64%
Sidney Crosby 24%
Evgeni Malkin, Henrik Zetterberg 4%
Pavel Datsyuk, Joe Thornton 2%

MOST OVERRATED
Roberto Luongo 6%
Vincent Lecavalier, Dion Phaneuf, Jay Bouwmeester, Sean Avery 4%

BEST FRANCHISE
Detroit 60%
Pittsburgh 14%
Montreal 12%
New Jersey 8%
NY Rangers, Chicago 4%

WORST FRANCHISE
Phoenix 28%
Atlanta 18%
Islanders 14%
Edmonton 12%
Florida 10%

WHO WILL WIN THE STANLEY CUP?
Chicago 32%
Pittsburgh, San Jose 16%
Washington 14%
Detroit, New Jersey 8%

And some other highlights:

Smartest Coach: Mike Babcock, Red Wings 22%
Last coach they would want to play for: John Tortorella, Rangers 18%

Grade Gary Bettman should get as commish: 30% said "C"

[Guynemer]

I'd rather have a guy with a surgically repaired shoulder as opposed to, for example, a surgically repaired knee. That said, he is a moderate injury risk, if not a catastrophic one.



Asher--are you sticking to your guns that this is Chicago's year, in spite of their shaky defense and goaltending?

[Asher]

I made that prediction a few years ago, and I'm still gonna stick with it if only because I would be ****ing God for predicting the 2010 Stanley Cup winner in 2007.

[Guynemer]

Fair enough. They're as likely to come out of the West as anyone else, I suppose; no one's starting a truly successful, playoff-tested goalie in the West this year, unless the Wings put Ozzy in, which seems unlikely barring a complete Howard collapse in the first round like Hasek a couple years ago.



EDIT: and that monstrosity of a run-on sentence is why my wife is the writer.

[Asher]

I really, really want a Washington - Chicago final.

The games would be like 7-8...

[notyoueither]

no one's starting a truly successful, playoff-tested goalie in the West this year

That's an interesting point.

It's the sort of year we see a changing of the guard, and reappraisals of the gospel.