Sunday, December 18, 2011

Broken Nose for Bouchard

After a scary moment on Wednesday night, where Minnesota Wild forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard went face-first into the boards in their game against the Blackhawks, there was some serious concern that he had suffered a concussion, much like most of the other superstars in the league these days. Fortunately, there was no concussion diagnosed, but he did suffer a broken nose, which has needed some adjustments on his part to become more comfortable with. On Saturday, Bouchard did skate with the team, but he ended up not dressing, as he wasn't 100% ready to play in a game situation.

In 29 games this sesaon, Bouchard has been good enough for 5 goals and 13 assists for the Wild, ranking him 171st in pool scoring, unofficially on Sunday afternoon. The Wild have been getting some consistent offense across the board this season and Bouchard is certainly one of those guys who have been helping out. With the Wild doing as well as they are, they could really do with Bouchard back in their line-up, not to mention a few of the other bodies out of the line-up at the moment.

ImplicationsThis is just another hit to Derek W.'s season, which hasn't been good this year.  It wasn't an awful week for Derek, which has kept the gap between his team and last place to 21 points, but it really has been an unlucky season for him all around.  It sounds like Bouchard is close to coming back, so this injury shouldn't impact the standings too greatly.

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