I've said many times before that Hossa was at the very least roughed up pretty bad in the playoffs. He took a few hits in the first couple rounds that clearly left him in a lot of pain as he struggled to skate off the ice. There was one in particular from Pronger I believe where Hossa was held up by another guy behind the net that was particularly brutal not to mention cheap and that came after all the other major hits I remember. I was thinking then that there's no way this guy can be even close to 100% out there after taking that many huge hits. And that was well before the finals and even semi's when everyone was crying about his production. And on top of that, he had a couple rough incidents towards the end of the season.
And why is it that he took those hits? He was the target. Why? Because the guy is one of the most potent scorers in the game. And because of that he got ran more times than any Wings player in the first couple rounds. Lots of guys took some hard hits, but Hossa took numerous brutal hits, some cheaper than others. I couldn't believe he even skated off after some of them.
I'm not surprised at all to see this and it doesn't color my opinion. I still think Hossa was a great asset to this team and is a great asset to any team, injury or not; he'll heal. In terms of the playoffs this last year, I think along with injuries, pressure and then pressing too much towards the end he just struggled to score like he did in the regular season. But he was still strong for us in our end and 6 goals and 15 points isn't exactly the worst he could've done in terms of output. While Hossa may not have done as much as we would have liked, we probably wouldn't have gotten near as far without him if we had all the same injuries. Even when he was pressing and not scoring, he was creating pressure in their end, wearing guys out and helping on D.
We lost as a team because we were just too beat up as a team. It happens. It sucks, but it happens. We probably got farther than we ever should have considering all of the injuries this team had. Continuing to single guys out is silly. The reality is, we came up 2 goals short in Game 7 despite it all. That's still something worth being proud of and worth remembering.
And we'll be back...
Right on man.
As for Hossa I always thought something was wrong. As you said there were a few times after a hit he skated right off the ice. I believe game 2 against the Ducks it happened for sure.
EK makes a good point in his blog about Hossa getting a physical. "Before they agreed to the deal on July 1?" It never happened until after he signed. If I was the Hawks I would say have surgery and we'll deal with it until December. Cause what if he plays on it and then in Jan or Feb he hurts it badly and he's done for the year? The Daily Hearld blog I saw some saying it was Tallon's fault. Well if McDonough wasn't pushing to sign Hossa then it wouldn't have been a big deal.
