Clutch 2009 - Year of the Fist

The new Clutch season is only 3 games old for most teams but already there has been a disturbing and remarkable trend of violence across the league. Teams are losing players to injury and suspension at an alarming rate.

It began on opening night when the Detroit Red Wings resembled an angry lynch mob as they attacked the Boston Bruins at every turn. Three Bruins defenceman (including young star Nick Boynton) went down in three separate incidents in which Red wing players clearly intended to injure and were ejected from the game. Boston has not won a game without their 3 of their top 6 defencemen. Two of the three have returned but Matt Walker is out indefinately with shoulder injury.

The Atlanta Thrashers had star winger Danny Heatley injured with a questionable hit by Juraj Kolnik of the Los Angeles Kings and then Darcy Hordichuk was ejected a few minutes later for highsticking Kolnik. The act was a clear case of retribution. Hordichuk is also enemy number one in the Rangers Dressing room after a vicious incident in which he was ejected and suspended a game later. Hordichuk has an astounding 50 penalty minutes in 4 games. That projects to an WORLD RECORD SETTING 1000 penalty minutes over 80 games!

The list of injured and suspended is shockingly long.
Here's a breakdown of the injuries in the league and the suspensions:

Injuries
Ducks:
Jukka Hentunen sidelined 1-2 weeks (bruised heel)
Atlanta:
Dany Heatley sidelined day-to-day (fractured cheekbone)Ryan Steeves sidelined day-to-day (pulled groin)
Bruins:
Matt Walker sidelined indefinitely (shoulder injury)
Carolina:
Scott Niedermayer sidelined day-to-day (facial injury)
Alexei Kovalev sidelined 1-2 weeks (eye injury)
Chicago:
Antoine Vermette sidelined 4-6 weeks (torn groin muscle)
Colorado:
Brad Larsen sidelined day-to-day (chest injury)
Columbus:
Josef Melicher sidelined 1-2 weeks (knee injury)
Dallas:
Fredrik Sjostrom sidelined 1-2 weeks (bruised shoulder)
Florida:
Sean Hill sidelined day-to-day (wrist injury)
Minnesota:
Mike Komisarek sidelined indefinitely (concussion)
New Jersey:
Ben Clymer sidelined day-to-day (foot injury)
New York Rangers:
Matthew Spiller sidelined 1-2 weeks (corneal abrasion)
Philadelphia:
Dmitri Kalinin sidelined day-to-day (chest injury)
Pittsburgh:
J-S Aubin sidelined day-to-day (bruised shoulder)

Suspensions: (some suspensions longer but only current time left indicated)

Atlanta:
Chris Bahen suspended 5 game
Hordichuk suspended 2 games
Columbus:
Roman Lyashenko suspended 2 games
Los Angeles:
Roman Lyashenko suspended 2 games
New York Rangers:
Roman Lyashenko suspended 2 games
Philadlephia:
Ryan Christie suspended 1 games
Georges Laraque suspended 1 games
Washington:
Georges Laraque suspended 1 games

All these injuries in such a short time is a major surprise and many of the suspensions were in retaliation to the event that caused an injury to a team mate. If this trend continues look for a long bloody year and a lot of unpredictability as teams regularly lose key players to suspension and injury.