BryanM

Napa, CA • United States • 26 Years Old • Male

Survival of the Fittest

Okay, I'm obviously not some great hockey expert writing about all the little nuances of the game I love. But I do know that finely-tuned athletic machines should not be getting hurt so easily in training camp.

Today I wake up to find Adam Burrish's name added to the list of players who will not make the season opener and I am forced to ask, what is going on here? Okay, Kyle Okposo's injuries are the result of a collision with Calgary's freight-train Dion Phanuef (I didn't see it so I'll let others argue the legal and ethical points on that one), but Burrish is now going to be out for six months with a torn ACL from simply going hard into the boards.

Sean Avery spraigned his knee in a collision with teammate Ryan Callahan during a morning skate.

Burrish joins Blackhawks' teammate Kris Versteeg on the injured list. Versteeg was hit in the first period of a preseason game against Washington and suffered an "upper-body injury."

Maybe, considering all these injuries, it is time to clean up the hitting in the preseason. Okposo was the first, and most controversial, but he starting a torrential downpour of players falling before the season even opens.

Or maybe something else is at work here. Maybe the guy getting hit just wasn't in as good a shape as he should have been physically coming into camp. Either way, somebody needs to step up and get the answer before the league loses all its high-profile players.

With that in mind I think it's safe to say the teams with the best chance of making the playoffs are the ones that can make it past the preseason with most of their roster intact.