The impact of injuries

Over at Puck Prospectus, I took part in a roundtable discussing the significance of the injuries to Johan Franzen, Daniel Sedin and Andrei Markov.

Here is an excerpt:

The loss of a team’s number one defenseman is always troubling; the loss of a team’s number one defenseman on a team that doesn’t really have a number two defenseman makes it all the more troubling. Last season, Andrei Markov inexplicably led the Canadiens in scoring with 64 points. (As an aside, how on earth does a defenseman lead a team in scoring? I mean, this isn’t Bobby Orr we are talking about; but I digress.) So, when Jacques Martin took the reins in Montreal, he was certainly counting on Andrei Markov to carry the majority of the weight on the team’s back-end. And why wouldn’t he? Last season, Markov led the Canadiens defenseman in power play goals (7), time on ice per game (24:37), power play time on ice per game (5:09) and was second in short-handed ice-time per game (3:10).

Read the entire roundtable here.