There's only one reason NHL players get hurt. And it's not because the NHL pre-season is too long.
One of the hot-button issues of the 2024 NHL pre-season has been the recent run of injuries, leading to suggestions that the exhibition schedule is too long.
There's no question it has its risks and rewards.
The rewards are obvious. Exhibition games allow clubs to practice their team and individual tactics during live fire action. There's no replacement for rehearsing things when an opponent is trying to take your head off, as will be the case during the regular season.
They also serve as a fine evaluation tool for new players and prospects. Coaches aren't interested in a prospect's stats or the nice goal he scored in a scrimmage. Again, they want to know how well you play the game while an opponent is trying to take your head off.
So those are some of the rewards. But the risk, of course, is player injury. It's basic math. The more NHL games you play, the bigger the risk becomes.
NHL stars who know they're on the team are out there just trying to get ready for the season. They're being asked to compete against fringe players trying to make the NHL. Those players are playing like it's Game 7 of the Cup Final, sometimes recklessly.
It can be a sour mix sometimes.
We were reminded of that on Tuesday as Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, and Thomas Chabot left the game in Montreal. Canadiens newcomer Patrik Laine, LA Kings star defenceman Drew Doughty, New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin, and top draft picks like Macklin Celebrini and David Reinbacher have also suffered recent injuries of varying seriousness.
But we need to keep this in perspective.
People are reacting like the stars play in every preseason game. They don't. They rarely play more than half of them. If we agree that all players need 1 or 2 pre-season games to get up to speed, then what are we talking about here? Are we complaining that the star players are playing three or four exhibition games instead of one or two?
When you're about to ask a player to go out and play as many as 110 games this season, do two pre-season games really add such a huge extra layer of risk?
Hey, I get it. It sucks when a player goes down with an injury in pre-season. It also sucks when a player goes down with an injury in game two of an 82-game regular season.
But players aren't getting hurt because the pre-season is too long. They're getting hurt because contact hockey at the highest level is dangerous as hell.