By Allan Muir

Pretty much everyone who saw Lars Eller lying face down in a pool of his own blood on Thursday night was horrified by the results of Eric Gryba’s devastating open ice hit. But there weren’t many, outside of Montreal loyalists who looked at that collision and thought it was the sort of play that needed to be eliminated from the NHL.

Apparently that number swelled by at least one today as the Ottawa defender was handed a two-game suspension by Brendan Shanahan for what he called an “illegal check to the head of Eller.”

No doubt this was a tough call for the NHL’s chief disciplinarian. Arguably the toughest he’d faced all season. Despite the injury suffered by Eller, there was no black or white in this incident. Watch the replay a dozen times and you won’t see incontrovertible proof of Eller’s head being the primary point of contact – -or of an innocent hit gone awry — unless that’s exactly what you’re looking to see.

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If and when he’s cleared to play, Sidney Crosby will be sporting a face shield to protect his jaw. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

By Allan Muir

It’s official: Sidney Crosby will not play for the Penguins tonight in Game 1 in Pittsburgh.

Crosby has been out of action since taking the full force of a Brooks Orpik slap shot to the face back on March 30. He told reporters on Wednesday morning that he failed to get medical clearance from a doctor to rejoin the team and that there was no timetable for his return.

“He said everything looks good, he just wasn’t prepared to let me play,” Crosby said. “Obviously I would love to have the chance to play tonight but that’s not the way it is and (I’ll) make sure I’m ready when the time comes.”

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That’s the same report that he’s been offering since he got out of the hospital. The thinking was that doctors were holding him out until the start of the playoffs in order to give him enough time to sufficiently heal. Now they’ve blown past that yard marker. Sure, he’s skating with the team and has looked good in practice, but it could still be days, or weeks, before he gets the thumbs-up from doctors. At this point, who knows?

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Kimmo Timonen is done for the year after suffering a compression fracture in his foot. (Derik Hamilton/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

If you skated as a defenseman for the Philadelphia Flyers on opening night, now might be the time to invest in a high-quality protective plastic bubble.

Only Luke Schenn and Kurtis Foster remain standing from that ill-fated group after Kimmo Timonen’s season officially came to an end today. The team announced that the veteran is done for the year after suffering a compression fracture in his foot.

Matthew Konan, who was signed as an undrafted overager out of Medicine Hat last April, was called up Monday. Assuming he doesn’t snap an ankle hailing a cab or suffer a serious sunburn between now and tonight, he could be the 13th player to suit up on the Philly blueline this season.

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Towering Sabres blueliner Tyler Myers’ game had become as small as his salary is huge. (Alan Schwartz/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

It was hard to imagine things getting much worse for the Buffalo Sabres after that truly shameful effort against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, but this is a team that demands you keep an open mind about the levels to which it might sink.

So, really, this morning’s news that defenseman Tyler Myers had broken his leg in the 5-1 loss shouldn’t come as a shock, given the way this disastrous campaign has played out for Buffalo.

For Myers, this almost qualifies as a merciful end to a brutal season. The 2010 Calder winner — and the league’s highest-paid player – has lost his mojo and needs his career reset as much as he does his leg. It might have been the weight of trying to play up to that $12 million salary, or the responsibility of carrying an undermanned blueline, but Myers’ game fell apart this year with a flurry of unforced puck errors, weak positioning and poor decisions. Getting away from this gong show might be exactly what he needs right now.

Another positive: the Sabres can get a look at one of their promising young defenders. The team hasn’t announced a call-up yet, but Alex Biega, a fifth-rounder from 2006, could be the guy. At just 5′-10″, he’s nearly a foot shorter than Myers, but he has shown some playmaking ability from the back end.

And if nothing else, the Sabres are one game closer to the draft lottery, right? Of course, the way things are going, the NHL will forget to put Buffalo’s balls in the hopper…

As Jesse Spector summed it up:

Tyler Myers breaking his leg is the dingleberry on top of the cow pie for the Sabres this season. What a disaster.—
Jesse Spector (@jessespector) April 12, 2013

By Allan Muir

Erik Karlsson’s possible return to the Ottawa Senators’ lineup this season is the question of the day after news leaked that the defending Norris Trophy-winner resumed on-ice activities Monday with skating coach Marc Power. And while he’s not exactly dancing out there, Karlsson looks pretty good for a guy who suffered a 70 percent tear of his Achilles’ tendon just two months ago.

His teammates — none of whom are doctors on the side — are suggesting that he could be back before the start of the playoffs.

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By Allan Muir

Remember that great bit on Saturday Night Live a few years back for Bad Idea Jeans? Bunch of guys talking obviously about recent life decisions that maybe weren’t in their best interests?

Yeah, those guys have nothing on Alexei Emelin.

The Montreal defender blew out his knee in an ill-advised attempt to blow up Boston’s Milan Lucic on Saturday night and is out for the rest of the year.

Emelin earned his team-leading 108th (and final) hit of the season from a generous Montreal scorer after stepping in front of Lucic, who was speeding down the left boards midway through the first period of a 2-1 win for the Habs. The Bruin winger saw Emelin setting up, but he initiated the contact that sent the Canadiens defender crumpling to the ice.

In between periods, Don Cherry mentioned on Coach’s Corner that Lucic lifted his right knee — a la former Montreal enforcer John Ferguson — just prior to contact. It likely was that knee that caused the damage to Emelin.

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Forget me not: Despite his long absence, Craig Anderson is still a Vezina Trophy candidate. (Jay Kopinski/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

Robin Lehner will get the start tonight for Ottawa against the Buffalo Sabres. If all goes well, it’s the last game he’ll play this year.

Starter Craig Anderson says he has “no hesitation in jumping over the boards and going in,” after lingering on injured reserve since Feb. 21. “If they need me to play, there really [are] no limitations right now for why I couldn’t,” he told the Ottawa Sun.

If he’s healthy, Anderson could run the table for the Sens, who’ll have 11 games to play after tonight.

It would be a heavy workload for a goaltender coming off a serious ankle injury, but there’s a lot on the line. Ottawa is in the thick of the Eastern Conference race, holding down the fifth spot. But with just five points separating the Sens from ninth place, and their next six games coming on the road, there’s no room for a slip. As good as Lehner’s been (2.15 GAA, .940 save percentage), he’s won just three of nine appearances, making Anderson a safer bet.

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In an NHL season full of ghastly injuries, Winnipeg defenseman Zach Redmond’s must surely be the most dangerous.

By Allan Muir

It’s been about six weeks since we heard the frightening reports from a Winnipeg Jets practice that rookie defenseman Zach Redmond had suffered a serious cut to his thigh and was bleeding profusely on the ice.

Not long after, we learned that the skate of teammate Antti Miettinen had slashed through Redmond’s femoral artery and he easily could have bled to death if not for the fast action of team trainers and surgeons.

“I’ve been doing this for 12 years and that’s easily the most-grave incident I’ve been a part of, for sure,” Jets head athletic therapist Rob Milette told the Winnipeg Free Press. “He lost a lot of blood there and his heart was definitely struggling. We were monitoring his vitals, checking his pulse. His pulse was really weak and really slow. He was pale. He was starting to tell us he was getting thirsty and that told us he had lost a lot of blood.”

Awful stuff.

But hearing about it and seeing it are two different things.

The photo above, tweeted by CBC’s Mitch Peacock, gruesomely illustrates just how lucky Redmond is to have survived the gash.

More amazing: Redmond returned to practice today. He’s not expected to be back this season (barring a deep playoff run by the Jets, so, um, you know), but he will return to action. Good stuff.

And on the plus side, chicks dig scars…

By Allan Muir

With pretty much everybody but Brent Ashton and Mike Sillinger having already been swapped today, the talking heads will have a lot of time to kill on the trade deadline shows on Wednesday.

Chances are they’ll spend more than a little bit of it discussing hybrid icing in the wake of this horrible injury suffered by Carolina defenseman Joni Pitkanen.

UPDATE: Pitkanen is expected to miss the rest of the season after breaking his left heel in his collision with the end boards.

You’ve probably heard the term before. If not, it’s a rule tweak that would allow officials to blow the play dead at the faceoff dot or at the goal line at their discretion. The thinking is that the option minimizes the chances that a mad race to the puck will end with the skater out front being injured in a collision with the boards.

It was tested in the American Hockey League, where it was well received. The general managers are in favor of it. So why don’t we have it yet?

Surprise! It’s been blocked by the NHLPA, which prefers to go with European-style no-touch icing or simply leave things the way they are.

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Sidney Crosby (87) had to be escorted off of the ice Saturday after taking a slap shot to the face. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

By Allan Muir

Memo to fantasy team owners of Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis: It’s time to sell.

News broke this afternoon that their center, Sidney Crosby, is out indefinitely with a broken jaw.

The injury, caused by a Brooks Orpik slap shot gone astray early in Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Islanders, threatens to sideline the league’s leading scorer for the remainder of the regular season.

The Penguins revealed that Crosby, who leads the league in points (56) and is a favorite for the Hart Trophy, had surgery on his jaw on Saturday night. He had led Pittsburgh to the best record in the NHL, as well as a 15-game winning streak that will be put to the test Tuesday night against Buffalo

The team stated on its website that it would provide a timetable later this week, but historical evidence suggests this type of injury keeps a player out of the lineup for 4-6 weeks. Here’s the story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.