This stuff didn’t happen in Winnipeg.
Alex Zhamnov has to wake up some mornings in Chicago and wonder, “What next?”
Last April it was a sprained ankle, which turned into surgery, which knocked him out of the playoffs. On Oct. 29, he took a shot off his right foot and it broke a toe. Two days later, a shot broke a toe on his left foot.
Monday, the Blackhawks center was involved in a car accident on the way to practice. The nagging headache that followed was diagnosed Thursday as a concussion, knocking him out of Thursday night’s game against Colorado.
The injury forced coach Craig Hartsburg to shuffle his lineup a bit. Jeff Shantz took Zhamnov’s center spot between Eric Daze and Sergei Krivokrasov. Shantz was going to play right wing on a line with Steve Dubinsky and James Black, so Ethan Moreau, returning after a three-week absence with a cracked knuckle, joined Dubinsky and Black. Brent Sutter, out for three weeks with a sore shoulder, returned to center the fourth line between Cam Russell and Jim Cummins.
The only line that remained unchanged was Greg Johnson, Tony Amonte and Brian Felsner.
Olympic downer: Down to the end, Eric Weinrich was considered a candidate for the U.S. Olympic team. But when the roster was finalized this week, the Hawks defenseman wasn’t surprised he was left off.
“I thought I had a pretty good shot for (last year’s) World Cup team and I got left off that,” said Weinrich, who played for the U.S. in the world championships last May. “The Olympics are always in the back of your mind, but I honestly didn’t think I was going to be a part of it.
“USA Hockey has always been kind of . . . I don’t want to say it’s a personal thing, but I’ve always been one of the alternates picked after somebody got hurt on every U.S. team I’ve been on. I got to play in the Olympics in ’88 and that was a big thrill, and I played in the ’91 Canada Cup. But for some reason, it hasn’t worked out with me and USA Hockey. It’s kind of disappointing.”
