The Oslo Outlaws should consider changing Tomas Hertl’s number from “48” to “Fragile.”
No player in the league has been out of the starting lineup more often than Hertl has this season. On 10 occasions, coach
Tomas Hertl, Oslo, Outlaws, has been out of the lineup 10 times with injuries.
Claude Julien has had to adjust the lineup because Hertl had to sit out. But Hertl has only been out 1 or 2 games each time with his problem or problems. Julien has been coy with reporters. On six occasions, he’s said the youngster is out with a “lower body” injury and on the other four occasions he’s called them “upper body” injuries.
Julien couldn’t hide the nature of the injury that kept Curtis Glencross out of the Oslo lineup for nearly a month. It was obvious when Athens’ Dustin Byfuglien skated away from a check in the corner on Oct. 25 and Glencross didn’t. In the second period of the Outlaws’ 7-1 loss to the Greeks, Glencross grimaced and held his right knee while rolling around on the ice in obvious pain.
The severity of the Glencross injury contributed to the fact that no team has lost more man-games to injury than Oslo has so far this season in the EURO. Eight different Outlaws have been sidelined. Munich has had 9 players out of the lineup, but for fewer total games. Here’s a chart showing which teams have lost the most man-games (If one player misses 3 and another missed 2, that would be a total of 5 man-games missed).
The players out the longest with injuries so far are:
- Chris Kunitz, Geneva, 31 days with a back injury
- Curtis Glencross, Oslo, 26 days with a knee injury
- Matt Hunwick, Belfast, 22 days with a rib injury
- Mark Fraser, Gothenburg, 19 days with an ankle injury
- Gustav Nyquist, Minsk, 17 days with a leg injury
- Alexander Radulov, Zurich, 17 days with a groin injury
Here are the most common types of injuries in the league thus far:
