With Hossa down, who will step up?
Over the course of an 82-game NHL season, every team is going to have to deal with its fair share of injuries.
Just ask the St. Louis Blues, who have lost players for a combined 208 games this season, according to mangameslost.com. That's the sixth-most in the league through Feb. 13, yet somehow the Blues keep winning.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Blackhawks have been extraordinarily lucky this season - especially when you consider the fact they've gone on three deep playoff runs in a row.
The Hawks have lost just 73 man games to injury, 10 of which were Duncan Keith early in the season.
Now, coach Joel Quenneville's team will be without do-it-all forward Marian Hossa for at least a week. Hossa was injured when he was hip-checked into the boards by Hampus Lindholm on Saturday night at the United Center. The Hawks placed Hossa on injured reserve, which he must stay on for seven days, and recalled Vincent Hinostroza from Rockford on Sunday.
Injuries always test a team's depth, but this one actually comes at a good time for the Hawks, who have just three games in the next 10 days and five in the next 16. Another bonus: Three of those five teams are Toronto (fewest points in the NHL), reeling Minnesota (which just fired Mike Yeo on Saturday) and Nashville (1-3 vs. the Hawks this season).
So the question for now is, who will take over Hossa's spot on the top line?
"Definitely creates some opportunity for some guys that haven't done much recently that should look forward to getting a greater chance," coach Joel Quenneville said Saturday.
The three top candidates are Teuvo Teravainen, Richard Panik and Jiri Sekac. Quenneville, though, didn't exactly give a ringing endorsement of Teravainen.
"Well, the opportunity's been there," the coach said. "Just grab it."
Panik has impressed since coming over in a trade with Toronto, scoring 3 goals in 14 games. Sekac has only played five games with the Hawks since a trade with Anaheim, but he has flashed speed and skill and certainly might be an option.
Not that Quenneville's going to take my advice, but I think it would be fun to see Artemi Panarin, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane together on the top line - for at least one game anyway. The team is struggling to score (4 goals in the last 10 periods), so why not put the three highest skilled players together and see what happens?
They'd probably blow Toronto out of the building by the time the first period is over Monday.
On the second line, put Artem Anisimov with Andrew Shaw and Teravainen or Sekac or Panik.
It's certainly worth trying, especially if you want to see what that power trio would look like if it was ever needed in the postseason.
As for Hinostroza, the Bartlett native led Rockford with 27 points, and he scored 8 goals in the team's last 20 games. He played in four games with the Hawks from Oct. 17-26.
The Hawks did not practice Sunday.
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