Tom: Well, here it is.

The nightmare stretch is upon a couple of NHL teams.

What am I talking about?

I'm going to get into it right now in this episode of Tiny

Biscuits, the Talking Puck Podcast.

If you've been listening to either the feature length Talking Puck Podcasts, and

if you have thank you very much or joining us for Talking Puck TV on Sunday nights

at 9:00 PM Eastern time on either Twitch or YouTube, where you just search Talking

Puck TV, you're listening to myself and Mike discuss different things going on.

COVID comes around as a topic almost every week.

We try not to make it a topic every week, but quite frankly, some weeks

it's really, really hard to avoid.

This week, it is hard to avoid it.

Looking at what's going to happen right now.

The New York Islanders and the Ottawa Senators are about to enter

a nightmare stretch of games.

They will essentially for the next 100 days, play every other night.

The Islanders are way behind the Senators are way behind, largely because of

COVID reasons they've been shut down, uh, for extended periods of time.

The Islanders especially have had a rough go of it this year and

it's showing in their records.

I don't think anyone expected the Senators to compete for a playoff spot this year.

They're young, They're building.

The Islanders, everybody thought they were going to be there, including myself.

I picked them as a playoff team.

They're a bottom dweller this year.

I'm not saying COVID has everything to do with it.

I'm not saying that disruption has everything to do with it starting your

entire year, for two months on the road also has something to do with it.

There, there are a lot of factors.

But.

Here is what I was so afraid of happening for any NHL team, regardless of who

they are or who you root for, you should be concerned for the Islanders

and the Senators about to play every other night for the next 100 days.

Well, Tom, why is that?

Because physically, I don't believe teams can maintain this,

especially too with the era of COVID.

We'll talk about the scheduling implications in a minute, but

that's not even my main concern.

I don't care if everybody plays a full allotment of games this year.

I'll just say that up front.

I don't, I could care less if the NHL finishes the regular season with

everyone playing the same amount of games, not worried about it.

So scheduling to me is secondary.

But I've been around the NHL game.

I've been around hockey itself, what, 20 years.

And it's an intense physical game.

Not everybody plays it that way, but there is hitting there's contact.

Uh, there's a lot of exertion and it's a sprinter's mentality because

you're out there 45 seconds going hard unless you're the goalie, but

you're sprinting around sprinting around you come off, you have to rest.

You have to recuperate.

And so for these incredibly trained athletes who are in physical peak

condition, most of the time, even over the course of regular season,

you get injuries, you get bumps and bruises, and some guys will try to

play through those bumps and bruises.

And when they do those injuries get worse, they become nagging injuries.

Eventually they could develop into something bigger.

Now you're asking.

An NHL team to play every other night, zero time for

rest, zero time for recovery.

I am afraid that we are going to see big injuries come out of this or

nagging injuries that never quite heal.

And for what?

I don't understand what the point of it all is because at the end of the day, the

league wants to get everybody to 82 games.

By the end of April, they're not even finishing in the normal middle of April.

We're finishing in the end of April.

So they're going to try to rush the Islanders and the Senators.

And if you think your team's off the hook for this, just wait until

you end up with a, bout of COVID the cancels five straight games, then

all of a sudden your team is going to be in the same kind of predicament.

Maybe not as long, maybe it'll be a 40 day stretch.

Maybe it'll be a 60 day stretch.

But right now, from now until the end of the season, starting this weekend,

we are asking too much, not a lot, too much, of these teams to be able to finish

their year at this crazy breakneck pace.

And it is easy.

To dismiss both of these teams because they're not playoff teams.

I actually feel like if they were playoff teams, at least if the Islanders

or a playoff team, there would be more of a comeuppance about it.

People would be more up in arms.

People would be more concerned.

Well, you can't ask the Washington Capitals to do.

You can't ask the Tampa Bay Lightning to do this.

How dare you asked the Vegas Golden Knights to do this?

They're a playoff team.

In a way, I think that unfortunately for the Senators and unfortunately

for the Islanders, they are kind of getting cast aside because of this.

But mark my words, this is incredibly unhealthy.

It is not going to do well for those players.

Heaven forbid we see nagging injuries that turn into long-term issues.

And I'm not talking just now, but maybe over a career.

I hope we don't see that, but we are going to see, bigger problems in a

physical way with these clubs as they try to compete through this stretch.

Now, maybe it's a good chance for a lower club to run through and rotate

some of the kids to take a look at their other talent, to see what they have.

Maybe it's an excuse to do that maybe in the Island, it's a good excuse

for Lou Lamoriello to clean house.

I don't know.

But I think it's too much and that needs to be said, and I want to get out in front

and say it now before the stretch starts.

So when we look back at this stretch, we don't say, well, you know, oh yeah,

it's easy to have hindsight on this.

I have foresight on this.

I'm telling you right now how it's going to go.

I'm just kind of surprised nobody seems to care.

Scheduling be damned, could care less if the Senators finish or the Islanders

finish with five, 10 less games played and we have to do it by when percentage again.

I don't think it's less of a season because of it.

It does not diminish anyone's accomplishment in my mind.

So that's, but the league feels differently and, I'm just kind of shocked.

So there you have it that it took this to bring back Tiny Biscuits.

And by the way, I'm going to try to bring back more of these.

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