I fully get we have had a lot of injuries, but I think we've been "healthy enough" for long enough, and we still are not seeing any sort of positive turnaround.
We lost Myers November 11 but gained Trouba November 11, so we still had a top 4 of Byfuglien, Trouba, Enstrom and the emergence of Morrissey. Since Trouba's return he has missed 3 games, 1 being a couple of nights ago vs. Nashville.
Bryan Little missed 17 games to start of the season, but returned November 29th.
Perreault has missed 14 games at the start of the season, but returned December 1st.
I don't know, I see our injuries, but I also see we've been pretty healthy with our key players since December 1st. A lot of our man games lost to injury have come from Myers, Little and Perreault to start the season, and then mostly depth players like Stafford, Armia, Dano, Matthias. And to be honest, I think our forward depth is good enough to overcome those injuries to the point where it shouldn't sink the team, or be the key reason for the teams lack of success from December onward.
As far as key players go, from about December 1st onward we've had sporadic injury to depth guys for the most part, but the results are still very unflattering. Goaltending very unflattering. Special teams very unflattering. Our 5on5 unflattering/on the whole worse all around from last season. Our lack of any sort of consistency or identity is very unflattering. Our lack of discipline is very unflattering.
I rank our issues as: goaltending/coaching and then injuries. I just think from December 1st onward this team could have shown better given the key drivers on the team have pretty well, for the most part, been healthy. Every team in the league sustains a certain amount of injuries. It's going to happen.
What is our man games lost to injury from December 1st to today?
Had Chevy gotten this team goaltending help, and Maurice either changed some systems/philosophies or of been replaced, I think it's reasonable to say the season could have been salvaged with a more proactive approach.
Maybe I am wrong.