Look around the National Hockey League these days — staggering 135 players were on injury lists last week.

That’s an average of 4.5 per team. Several dozen of the injuries are long-term, perhaps season-ending.

The Edmonton Oilers had eight players out before Taylor Hall took a skate in the forehead from teammate Corey Potter during the pre-game warm-up last week, resulting in a Frankenstein-ish scar. That left the Oilers without three of their top forwards — Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle — plus defencemen Ryan Whitney, Tom Gilbert and Cam Barker. All told, the salaries of the injured players was about $20 million US.

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Penguins were without seven players, including, of course, Sidney Crosby with his well documented concussion issues. Joining him on the sidelines were Jordan Staal and Kris Letang. The combined salaries of that trio is $16.2 million.

There are similar stories in Buffalo, where the defence has been decimated. Columbus got off on the wrong, well, foot, when incoming star centre Jeff Carter was injured at the start of the season and has never recovered. The injuries have since piled up. Carter, now out with a separated shoulder, and James Wisniewski, out with a broken ankle, make a combined $10.2 million.

The list goes on and on.

The Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were missing seven players, the New York Rangers were without six, while the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Islanders had five on their injury lists. Every team was missing at least one star.

Players rarely use injuries as an excuse for losing, but it only makes sense that, when a team’s highest paid players are gone, the margin for error is reduced.

“It’s tough to win hockey games when you’ve got four or five of your best players out,” rugged Penguins winger Arron Asham said before a Jan. 10 game against Ottawa, making a rare locker-room admission.

Asham, incidentally, was coming off a knee injury at the time. Now he’s out again with concussion symptoms, the 11th Penguin player with a concussion in the past 12 months.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told a group of reporters in Anaheim, California that the disclosure of head injuries by players and teams was one reason why concussion numbers were so high. Fair enough.

We also all know that, given the physical nature of the game, the size of players, the small ice surface and a hectic schedule, players are going to get hurt.

The league and players’ association regularly discuss rule changes and altering equipment — a softer shoulder pad model is being discussed — but are they practising enough preventive medicine?

Regardless of what happens during the stressful negotiations towards a new collective bargaining agreement, players’ health should be an area where there’s common ground. It’s obviously in the players’ best interests to explore every possible safety avenue, and it’s clearly in the best financial interests of teams: If injuries are the reason Pittsburgh doesn’t make the playoffs or Philadelphia (playing without the concussed Chris Pronger) doesn’t advance deep in the post-season, it’s a multi-million dollar loss in revenue.

For the time being, though, there seems no end to the ailments. Makeshift lineups are the order of the day.

Ottawa Citizen