Friday, October 10, 2008

So Much for Our Defensive Depth

With eight defensemen on the roster, who would have thought that one period into the season, Eric Elmblad and Chris Summers would be back on our blueline?

Brandon Burlon has his foot in a boot because of an injury that the radio guys said wasn't minor. He's out for at least this weekend. Tristin Llewellyn is out tonight with "concussion-like symptoms" and we don't know about his status for tomorrow.

In the first period, Mark Mitera left the game with a left-knee injury. Again, no word on the seriousness of an injury that could be a devastating loss if it's major. Michigan moved Chris Summers back to defense to compensate.

It's currently 3-3 after the second period of play. Michigan has goals from Ben Winnett, Carl Hagelin, and Chad Langlais. Langlais's goal was the first of his Michigan career.

SLU went with Petizian in net and it sounds (the video feed on MGoBlue isn't working) as if he's kept them in the game. Michigan has been buzzing but he's made some big stops.

It sounds as if the Hagelin-Rust-Palushaj line is everything that we hoped it would be. They've had a ton of chances, Hagelin has a goal and an assist, Rust apparently made a gorgeous pass for Langlais's goal and has two assists on the night (and is 11/15 in the faceoff circle), and Palushaj assisted on Hagelin's goal. If not for a few big stops, this line would have done even more damage.

I've heard Czarnik's name several times as well, though he's been held off the score sheet.

More later. Keep your fingers crossed for Mitera. We can't afford to lose him...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That explains a lot. I was hoping that Red just decided to sit Burlon and Llewellyn tonight, for whatever reason.

Losing Mitera tonight had an obvious affect on the remainder of the game. There just wasn't much cohesion in the 2nd and 3rd (although October ice and nearly 80 degrees didn't help). Combine that with Burlon for any length of time, and we're hurting a bit. A Pateryn/Emblad pairing was pretty worrisome.

Oh, and damn that soft October ice.

Barring all of the above, SLU still impressed me defensively. They backcheck extremely well, protect the front of their net as if it's priority number 1, block more shots than most teams, and generally clog the lanes well. I understand we may have made them look a little better than they are, but they deserve credit defensively.

On the flip side, I didn't see too much out of SLU's offense that made me worry much. Yes, they hung 3 goals on us, but that was mainly due to defensive miscues and a big fat rebound from Billy.

I'm interested to see what happens tomorrow. More importantly, I'm anxious to hear a prognosis on Mitera and Burlon. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Did I mention the crappy October ice?

Anonymous said...

The word I've heard on Mitera is pretty negative. All three ligaments in that knee torn, almost certainly a season (if not career)-ender. I'm praying my sources are wrong.

Anonymous said...

I don't think your sources could be right, because if they are then there is no way on earth he would be able to calmly sit and watch the third period. I saw him with my own eyes, and all he had was a bag of ice and a stabilizer. Lets not get too crazy with this, because anybody who tears all his ligaments and walks on it the same night truly is Christ himself...

Maybe he is the Second Coming?
Or that is just plain wrong.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'm reading a lot to the contrary now. I didn't see him in the third period from where I was sitting, but I also wasn't scanning Yost for Mitera. I'm really really glad if I've gotten this wrong as it seems like I must have. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed until we hear a definitive word though...

Thanks for the update.

Packer487 said...

Bret from GoBlueWolverine said he talked to someone with the team last night at 1 am and heard that the news "isn't good", but the source wouldn't tell him the nature of the injury yet.

I hope to God that this is a bad sprain at worst. It'd be terrible to lose him for the season. Maybe the Hockey Gods just don't want Chris Summers to play forward.

Anonymous said...

They will have to get an MRI to really know what's up