Let’s start off the new year with a mailbag. Topics in this edition include an assessment of Calgary’s top trade chips, what Chicago could be looking to do over the coming months, and much more.
Cla23: Is it just me or are there more players on or heading to IR than previously; if yes, why?
Devil Shark: Can you do a team comparison of injuries? Most specifically games lost to top six forwards or top two D? Interested to see if anyone had been as unlucky as NJD…
Using NHL Injury Viz’s Injury Frequency chart, it looks like fewer players are injured now than a year ago by about 10-15 per league game. Meanwhile, when comparing this season to the average over the past two decades, it has been pretty close, either slightly above or slightly below. So from a games-missed standpoint, it doesn’t feel like there are more injured players than usual.
But there’s a bit of a difference between what you’re asking and what that link measures. I don’t think there are that many more players landing on IR but some teams are known to get creative with their placements. That can be done for roster or cap management purposes. If a player lands on IR, they only have to miss seven days and it’s from the date of the injury, not the day of the placement. So even if they’ve missed a couple of games, they can backdate a placement to get a replacement up for sometimes even just a single contest. That’s an option that quite a few teams utilize.
Meanwhile, some teams are starting to use LTIR a bit more frequently. That can be used if a player will miss 10 games and 24 days; we’ve seen a few placements this year where the player is back after just missing the minimum number of days. But for teams near the Upper Limit of the salary cap, the LTIR placement gives them some much-needed relief so that is starting to be used a bit more often now with so many teams tight to the cap.
As for a team comparison, NHL Injury Viz has some tools for that as well so let’s use that although it doesn’t break down top-six forwards and top-pairing defensemen. From a cap hit perspective, San Jose has had the biggest impact; Logan Couture skews that one quite a bit. Vegas is right up there thanks to Robin Lehner; Max Pacioretty skews Washington’s number somewhat as well as does Gabriel Landeskog in Colorado. Next are Columbus whose list of injuries is long and quite significant, followed by Anaheim and Montreal, teams who are in varying degrees of a…
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