Silver Nuggets: Foligno out two weeks, Ruutu not suspended

by DarrenM on Dec 17, 2009 11:53 AM EST in Silver Nuggets

Here are some Ottawa Senators stories for your reading pleasure:

Nick Foligno will have scope surgery on his knee tomorrow morning, and will miss about two weeks. He apparently was injured in the game against Toronto, though I don't know when it happened. (Sens Twitter)
Jarkko Ruutu has avoided suspension, and just received a fine for his hit to the head on Patrick Kaleta last night. (Score)
Bryan Murray says that despite the Spezza injury, he's not expecting to make a move due to salary cap restrictions. Says the only way he could make a move is if the other team was willing to take some salary, which is a euphemism for "Kovalev or Cheechoo." (Slam)
Our friends in the Sens blogosphere have some recaps for you on last night's win: (Another Ottawa Senators Blog) (Black Aces) (Sens Chirp)
Fanhouse looks at how the Jason Spezza injury will impact the Senators. Summary: a lot. (Fanhouse)
Cyril Leeder announces some new deals to try and put fans into the seats at Scotiabank Place. Most deal with season ticketholders, though, and not the single seat tickets that most of us rely on. (Citizen)
The coach of the Denver University Pioneers expresses a bit of frustration about Team Canada's decision to bring Patrick Wiercioch to camp only to send him away before tryouts due to injury. (Denver Post)

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Just something to think about

In baseball, the most valuable players in the league have been determined to be worth about eight wins or so above the contribution you could expect from some decent random minor leaguer. That’s over 162 games.

Spezza’s set to miss 31 games, yesterday included, 31 games representing 38% of the season. How many “wins” is Spezza worth over 82? If you’re really really really generous, you might say, what, five? That would leave the impact of his loss around two wins. Significant, but not huge. And to be frank, that’s being nice about his value.

I know that hockey’s a lot more complicated to analyze than baseball is. Baseball’s a 1-vs.-1 sport at its heart, while hockey relies on a lot more interaction between players. But while that may be so, at the same time we have to be reasonable about things like this. It’s tempting to look at Spezza’s injury and think “oh great there goes the season,” but it isn’t sensible for that to be true, and sure enough, we’ve gotten through this before looking aces.

by Jeff Sullivan on Dec 17, 2009 12:28 PM EST reply actions

Interesting

It’s definitely hard to compare the two sports, but it is interesting to try and figure out how much a player can impact a team’s success/failure rate.

Silver Seven: the Daniel Alfredsson of Ottawa Senators blogs.

by DarrenM on Dec 17, 2009 12:32 PM EST up reply actions

It takes a special player to be completely irreplaceable on a hockey team

I totally see your point. You look at a player like Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby, they might be the difference between a 30-win season or a 50-win season for their respective teams. A goalie like Ryan Miller or Martin Brodeur could have a similar negative effect for their teams. In most cases, though, a single player isn’t make-or-break for his team.

Spezza, in his career, has single-handedly stolen few, if any, games. I’m not suggesting he won’t be missed, but if the rest of the team steps up as effectively as they did last night, the team should be able to get away with it.

www.silversevensens.com

by Peter Raaymakers on Dec 17, 2009 12:40 PM EST up reply actions