Alfredsson's Injury Points The Way

First, the hit from Wednesday:Despite the baying for blood, based on this highly pixelated video I would call it an unfortunate hockey incident. Hockey is a contact sport, and sometimes the contact is felt a little more than other times. So the fact that there was no penalty on the play doesn't bother me.

The word today is that Alfredsson is gone for four to six weeks. So he might be back before Spezza is, with maybe a couple of weeks to go before the Olympic break. Actually forget that, this is the guy who only missed, what, one game last year after breaking his jaw? Iron Man Alfredsson will be back in less than six, unless the injury is worse than we've been led to believe -- even though really he should rest easy and come back slowly. If he doesn't come back until after the Olympics it isn't the end of the world.

Because as we saw yesterday, this team may not get to the playoffs. Let's be honest here -- if Alfredsson is the one straw that makes the difference between playoffs or not, then this team is not ready to compete.

And that means the rebuilding has to continue. If we can get Spezza scoring again and find him another productive winger to go with Michalek, we'd be a lot further ahead. On the subsequent lines there is some tweaking we can do -- I think that if Cheechoo can find his mojo again, he would still be overpaid, but it would spread the scoring threat around even more.

Behind them we still have a lot to do to make the defense corps effective. Karlsson has potential -- his time in Bingo showed that -- but he is a couple of years away from being a top-two defender, and his small stature may always be a liability. Volchenkov and Phillips are top-four defense, easy, but behind them we have a whole lot of mediocrity -- guys who are good enough to fill out the defense corps at reasonable prices. Sure, Carkner brings other assets to the table, but he's not top-two and I don't think anyone would argue that.

In goal, I like LeClaire. I think his record thus far this year, as has Elliot's, suffers more from the lack of scoring up front and the lack of defensive discipline. Given decent defense, and more production up front, both of these guys are capable of holding the fort.

Of course this is all a bunch of hot air. Murray knows what needs to be done, and I'm sure he's working on doing it.

But as of now I would rather miss the playoffs and keep Alfredsson healthy for next year rather than rush him back just to squeek into the playoffs.