Prepare Yourselves About Mitera

He went to the hospital for an MRI last night and according to Red in the post-game presser, "I can tell you that it is going to be serious."

Bret from GBW talked with someone from the team at 1 am last night as the results were starting to get back to the players, and, though they weren't ready to let the information out, his source did tell him, "It's not good."

Red indicated that if Mitera is out long-term that he would consider moving Chris Summers back to defense full-time. I think you pretty much have to make that move. Strangely enough, our defense probably won't end up taking a hit because of Mitera's injury. You could make the case that Summers was actually better--or at least more consistent--last year. So you take one top-notch player out of the lineup and replace him with someone equally good. The impact is going to be up front where we'll lose the services of Summers, who I think was going to be an absolute monster. Also, we lose our safety net on the blueline. It sounds as if Llewellyn would be able to play tonight, but we need to get Burlon back and we can't really afford to have anyone else go down at this point.

I think the Hockey Gods just don't want Summers playing forward. Last year he played a couple games up front before leaving for the GLI and then having Kevin Quick get booted from the team. This year Mitera goes down in the first fricken period of the season, likely forcing him to move back to defense.

The other thing is that whether Mitera is out long-term or not, we're going to have to name someone else an alternate captain. It seems pretty clear that our captain is going to miss some time, if not the season. That would leave Summers as the only letter-wearing player out there. They're going to have to put a letter on at least one other guy's jersey. My nominee: Matt Rust. He's already quite possibly our best forward, he leads by example (playing with a broken leg?!), and he's got future captain written all over him. Might as well take this as an opportunity to start grooming him.

One thing I forgot to mention last night over here (I did bring it up at the Yost Post), and it was mentioned in the comments, is that Brandon Naurato needs to be smarter. He took two penalties last night, both of which were unnecessary from the sound of it. One negated a Michigan power play in the third period of a tied hockey game. The other was an offensive-zone penalty (I believe) and the Saints scored on the power play.

Lastly, our new jerseys are AMAZING. I absolutely love 'em. I'm usually against jerseys that have numbers on the front, but underneath the name of the team is the one acceptable location. Just so long as they never put them up by the shoulder.

So yeah, keep your fingers crossed for Mitera, but I'm not optimistic about this one having a happy outcome, just based on the tone of the comments that we've seen. Eff.

Between Llewellyn, Mitera, and Burlon, I wonder if that's enough injuries early on that Brian can officially announce the addition of an Angry Michigan Defenseman Hating God?