Hillier is Hurt

Game 2 update; Ryan Hillier tried during the pregame warmups to see if he could pay but clearly was hurting and did not dress for tonight's game 2.

The good news is that he can skate and Game 3 is not until Wednesday evening. We will update with more as we get it.

These are the kind of reports that we hate to have to write as Ryan Hillier suffered what the Halifax Mooseheads are calling a "lower body" injury during Saturday's game against the Gatineau Olympiques.

The injury clearly appears to be to his left leg but the "how and when" this injury occurred depends on who you listen to. Our own policy is unless we have satisfactory proof both injury and player status then we will not go into detail.

We will not do either the player or the Mooseheads a disservice by playing guessing games about someone's health. We would rather error on the side of caution and wait until we have an accurate picture rather than play guessing games.

In others words look for an update sometime Sunday as to both injury and status.

The Mooseheads are calling Hillier as "day to day" and that he even might play on Sunday. However since nobody had a solid idea at to how severe the injury at press time we will suggest that view this report as cautious optimism and hope that Hillier is able to not only play but be effective.

Sorry but as much as we want to see Hillier be able to play, we take the long term view and do not want to see either a further aggravation of his injury or even worse hurt his team by playing when he is not effective.

We are sure of this much: Hillier was injured midway in the second period of the game. He tried to play a few shifts in the 3rd period but was clearly favoring his leg and eventually stopped playing. The game which wound up going into overtime saw Hillier as not playing in the overtime period.

As for the game itself, the Mooseheads dropped Game 1 of this series 2-1 in overtime which very much will make Game 2 a huge much win game with or without Hillier in the lineup. As for the game itself, it was not the wide open game many though it would be and we believe that Hillier's injury did play a factor as it deflated the Herd.

This series is being played under the 2-3-2 format so the hole that the Mooseheads have started to dig needs to be halted. As we said we will update as soon as we get an accurate picture of Hillier's status.

(Hillier Picture courtesy of the Halifax Mooseheads)