Defensemen injuries are already piling up early in the NHL playoffs
Deep NHL playoff runs Jason Demers went on during his playing career usually ended the same way.
“The injuries just accumulated too much,” he said. “And then you’re just not playing at 100%.”
That attrition is already showing early in the first round this spring at Demers’ old position, as defenses have been depleted by existing and new injuries, from Tampa Bay’s Mikhail Sergachev and Colorado’s Samuel Girard being out long term to Carolina’s Brett Pesce going down Monday night and Washington being down to minor leaguers to fill its many voids.
There were 70 goals scored over the first 10 games in the first round, a product of not just hot offense sparked by some of the league’s top players but team-wide struggles to keep the puck out of the net.
“It’s really hard if you don’t have some depth and guys that can step right in and can have impact,” said three-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Ken Daneyko, now an NHL Network analyst. “When you’re missing a top player like a Sergachev like Tampa is, it makes it that much more difficult, but you find a way to rally around other guys. You have to. And if you don’t have enough, well that’s going to be tough to make some noise in the playoffs.”