Dater: Sorry Fans, But NHL Needs To Allow Teams To Fully Rest Top Players At End Of Season

I still remember it well. It was the final game of the 2003-04 Avalanche regular season, a meaningless game, against Nashville at the Pepsi Center. Time was running out in regulation of a 1-1 game, a game that would be won 2-1 in OT by Nashville’s David Legwand.

There were two minutes and 21 seconds left in regulation when Paul Kariya, who had been hampered much of the season with a wrist injury but was playing well again with the playoffs just a few days away, fell awkwardly to the ice, twisting his right ankle in the process.

It was a bad sprain. Kariya out “indefinitely”, the team said.

One of the game’s most exciting forwards would wind up missing all of the first round against the Dallas Stars, which the Avs found a way to win, and all but Game 6 of the second round against San Jose, a series the Avs lost.

As I wrote at the time: why the hell was Paul Kariya even on the ice with 2:21 left in a meaningless regular-season game? Why was coach Tony Granato still playing top guys in the third? Why were any top guys playing in that game at all? Only bad things can happen in games like that, and they did. The game meant absolutely nothing to the Avs, but they lost a big key to their postseason hopes with that injury.

Now let’s take a look at the current Avs: They lost very valuable defenseman Josh Manson last night to an upper-body injury in a game that meant absolutely nothing. The Avs already have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs as long as they’re in it.