Injuries and suspensions

The WHL head office handed out a whopping six suspensions yesterday for incidents that happened over the weekend's series-opening games. Combined with a couple of injuries to key players also incurred over the weekend, more than a few series have been impacted heading into games 3 & 4 over the next couple days.

First, the injuries. Spokane star defenceman Brendan Kichton suffered a broken jaw in the Chiefs' game 1 loss in Vancouver, and today the team confirmed the worst: Kichton is done for the season. As a 19 year old likely to turn pro next year, his WHL career is over. This is a significant blow to the Chiefs, seeing as how Kichton was only the West nominee for the WHL's Defenceman Of The Year award.

Can the Chiefs dig themselves out of a 2-0 hole without the services of perhaps their best player?

Second injury, the Tri-City Americans have lost 19 year old defenceman Drydn Dow for the rest of the season as well due to a hit from behind by Everett's Manraj Hayer. Dow suffered a broken arm on the play and will not play again this year. While not the same as Spokane losing Kichton, it's still a blow to the Americans to lose one of their top four defencemen, and so early in the playoffs too. The Americans should still make short work of the Silvertips even without Dow, but will his absence be felt later in the playoffs?

The injury bug has also hit the Calgary Hitmen hard, as they are missing their 2nd and 3rd leading scorers - forwards Victor Rask and Cody Sylvester. Both suffered undisclosed injuries in the regular season finale and have not played in any of the three games of the Calgary-Brandon series so far. Calgary trails the series 2-1 and have managed only 7 goals combined in the three games without the two stars. Both are listed as day-to-day; the Hitmen could use them back ASAP as they try to get back into this series.

To the suspensions now;

Everett had two players suspended yesterday - Manraj Hayer got an indeterminate suspension for the Dow cheap shot mentioned above. I suspect the league may have been waiting to see how badly Dow was hurt before finalizing the suspension, so we may get some clarification on Hayer soon. I'm thinking he will get 3-5 games, which should be enough to keep him out for the rest of this season and perhaps the first game or two of next year.

Everett's Ryan Harrison also received a one game suspension for an interference major on Tri-City forward Jesse Mychan in game two. Losing Harrison - who was Everett's 2nd leading scorer and one of only two plus players on the team - for the critical game three will hurt the Tips' chances of avoiding the 3-0 hole of death.

Kamloops has had Western Conference 2nd All Star team defenceman Austin Madaisky suspended for two games for a hit to the head of Victoria forward Zane Jones in game two of that series. Kamloops should still be able to win this series even without Madaisky for games 3 & 4 but it will be slightly more difficult now without their best defenceman.

Kelowna has lost leading goalscorer Brett Bulmer for an indeterminate amount of time as well after a kneeing major on Portland captain William Wrenn in game two on Saturday. It was the culmination of a rather reckless game for Bulmer, who racked up three kneeing penalties in all in just that game. As a result, Bulmer may now finish his WHL career on the suspended list - I'm thinking he gets at least two games, maybe more if (A) Kelowna actually wins any games in the series and (B) Wrenn is injured and unable to play in game 3 or longer. It seems likely that Bulmer has seen the last of the inside of a Rockets jersey though, and losing him will make the already difficult task the Rockets had of beating Portland even more impossible.

And lastly, Moose Jaw forward Cody Beach has been suspended for one game for an allegedly tasteless comment directed at the Regina Pats bench during game two of that series. Nobody is telling the public exactly what Beach said, but it must have been way across the line of what is acceptable (and must have been overheard by an official or two) if he's getting suspended for it.

There you have it....suspensions and injuries galore so far, many involving key players on their teams. It's been an unusual start to the playoffs for sure.