No more Nyls

Hope you're sitting down, folks. This is a bad one. Per Tarik, Michael Nylander's season is over. Nylander, who has been gutting it out with a torn rotator cuff the past few weeks, has finally decided to shut it down and have surgery. His recovery time is expected to be 3-6 months, but with a player his age expect it to be more towards the latter than the former.

Nylander, who was the Caps second leading scorer with 37 points, has been visibly hampered by the injury to the point where his effectiveness on the ice was nearly nonexistant at even strength (as evidenced by his team worst minus-19). One wonders if he was playing with the pain partially in an effort to hit the 200 goal mark for his career, which he did this past Sunday against Philly.

The final image we'll take of Nylander this season is of him sending rookie phenom and fellow Swede Nicklas Backstrom over the the referee to collect the puck from his landmark goal. While it may not have been meant as a passing of the torch at the time, it certainly feels like one now.

On the lighter side, the YoungStars game (in which Backstrom will participate) is officially a 3-on-3 farce. Next year I hear everyone is going to have to wear two left skates for the entire "game".