Hamilton Bulldogs forward Blake Geoffrion suffered a fractured skull on Friday night. The Montreal Canadiens issued a statement on Saturday afternoon. Geoffrion is still in hospital in Montreal. He is still in the intensive care unit. His condition was upgraded to stable
He suffered the injury when he was crunched by Syracuse D JP Cote. Geoffrion had successful surgery Friday night for treatment of a depressed skull fracture. His condition is stable and he remains at the intensive care unit at the hospital.
Geoffrion is out indefinitely, and the medical staff is expecting a complete recovery from his injury.
Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
Here's Geoffrion lighting up the Sabres for a hat trick in his rookie year in the NHL, with the Nashville Predators.
How do you get a hot goalie off his game? You run him, right? Bumps, nudges, butt-ends, slashes of his glove after the whistle, contact in his crease. All of the things that Ryan Miller and top flight goalies hate.
When shooters get frustrated and they can't score on an immovable object of a goaltender, they resort to goon tactics in order to change the ebb and flow of the game. This is how competitors change their fortunes.
For the purposes of this blog, Donald Fehr is thye Vezina goalie who is currently stone walling Gary Bettman and the NHL owners. They keep shooting bullets at him and his players, from all angles, and he keeps making save after save.
The frustrations of Bettman and the owners oozed out, like hot, molten lava from Mount Vesuvius all over the town folk of Pompei, after talks concluded on Friday night in the NHL labor negotiations Friday night. It was the fourth straight day of bargaining after two weeks of no contact between the owners and players.
It appears as though the owners have lost their patience with Don Fehr. Amped up and flummoxed, the NHL accused Fehr of misrepresenting some specifics of the league’s proposals, citing a memo from Fehr to the players that had leaked Friday morning that they felt omitted or did not fully explain the owners’ positions. Talk about running the goalie. The owners, through their mouthpiece Bettman, are now resorting to personal attacks on Fehr. They can't beat him clean, so now its time to bump him in an attempt to get him off his game.
Bettman is frustrated by Fehr’s stall tactics, his analytical style and his steadfast refusal to work within the framework of the NHL’s proposals. Friday night was the first time that Bettman and the owners have publicly criticized Fehr. According to reports, the owners want to get a deal done ASAP. The tough process is that NHL owners want games to begin on December 1st. It would be a truncated version of an NHL season which will feature 60 games, then the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The owners want Fehr to knock off the patience routine and sign their deal now. Fehr refuses to do so. The result is that all 725 NHL players are witnessing an intense game of poker. Bettman won't fold. Fehr likes his cards. The stakes get higher and higher by the day. The pot keeps shrinking with each passing week. Who will blink first in this game of chicken?
Fehr is cooler than the other side of the pillow right now, while the collective blood pressure of the owners and Gary Bettman is presently through the roof. The owners keep probing for Fehr's pressure-point, his breaking point, and the just can't find it. Bettman and his owners are clearly angry and frustrated. The longer that Fehr and the players hold out in search for the best deal possible, the more frustrated and PO'd the owners are becoming. Fehr is a patient negotiator. He's not a yeller and a screamer. He's not a grandstand seeker. He's simply listening to the owners. Fehr is dissecting and translating to laymans terms the proposals. He's relying on his players to participate in the process and to sit in on negotiating sessions. The players are informed. Fehr is their leader.The owners are agitated because they want resolution. Bettman wants to win this negotiation. Fehr is doing everything in his power to prevent the players from signing a compromised agreement.
Fehr was hired by the NHLPA for one reason: he won't let the players cave and accept a sub-par deal.
Sabres players, and other NHLers that I have spoken with to a man tell me that they have profound respect for their leader Don Fehr. The players belive that Fehr has their backs. They don't view him as a slick-talking suit. They respect his intelligence and his passion for creating the best CBA that he possibly can so that the players don't wind up in this same position in 6-8 years when the agreement ends. The players are in the negotiating room and they see and hear all that goes on. Fehr and his assistants are as transparent as they can be. They schedule regular conference calls with the NHLPA members. The PA is paying for airline tickets and hotel rooms for those players who wish to be in the room, like Sabre Robyn Regehr has done several times during this 56 day lockout.
Fehr met with his players on Saturday morning. The two side will meet again Saturday afternoon. Both sides have agreed to keep meeting until they hammer out a mutually beneficial agreement. If that means staying in NYC all weekend and on Veteran's Day, then so be it.
Hamilton Bulldogs forward Blake Geoffrion was rushed to hospital Friday night following this thunderous check delivered by JP Cote of the Syracuse Crunch.
Geoffrion smashed his head on the ice and was cut by the skate blade of Cote.
The Montreal Gazette reports that Geoffrion is okay. He underwent surgery of an undisclosed nature.
The 24-year-old made it to his feet and skated off, directly to his team's dressing room, as a melée ensued, Hamilton's Michael Blunden battling Côté in a short fight.
Geoffrion lost some blood in the incident, ice crews needing to scrape the ice, and he didn't return to the game.
Scary moment indeed. I'm glad that Geoffrion was not more seriously injured.
Join the Discussion:
»