News came today that two of the Washington Capitals, Carl Hagelin and Ilya Samsonov, were hurt in practice yesterday. Hagelin has what might be a serious eye injury, and I wish him well. Samsonov was hit with a puck, and his near future is still being evaluated.
Hearing that, I wondered if there was any chance losing some players to injury would hurt the team enough to put the playoffs in jeopardy, and I realized I didn’t know. A few weeks ago, the Eastern Conference was solidly set with no one with a hope of even making the wildcard race from below.