I Feel Bad for R.J. Umberger

Columbus forward R.J. Umberger has been a solid source of secondary scoring since starting his NHL career in 2005-2006. He has 274 goals in 474 career games and, just recently, was signed by the Columbus Blue Jackets to a 5 year extension. However, the former first round draft pick has had a dose of bad luck throughout his career.

Go onto www.youtube.com and look up R.J. Umberger. While most hockey players would have results of videos of highlight goals and good plays, Umberger has several pages of getting laid out by opposing players. And it all started with this famous hit:

"Flyers looking to respo-OOOOOOO"

R.J. Umberger was simply decked (legally) by Brian Campbell in the 2005-2006 playoffs in Game 1 against the Buffalo Sabres. Umberger did come back later in the series but that look on his face after the hit was priceless.

 Umberger did get his rematch though next season in a fight with Campbell.

Skip a few years. The 2009 NHL playoffs saw the Columbus Blue Jackets faced off against the Detroit Red Wings. Umberger was doing alright in Columbus but they were facing a 2 games to none deficit going into game 3. That's when he ran into Brad Stuart.

Another instance of Umberger skating with the puck up the ice with his head down. He was rocked by Stuart on a clean hit. Once again, Umberger came back later in the series. Now another lifeless image of Umberger filled our heads.

Skip another couple of years. Last season on March 15th, the Blue Jackets were playing the Boston Bruins and hello there Brad Marchand:

 Boston's Brad Marchand deliberately elbowed Umberger in the head. Marchand was suspended 2 games for this incident and once again, Umberger came out relatively unscathed as he was in the lineup the next game. However, Umberger called Marchand out saying "You got to think that's one of the hits we are trying to eliminate, whether it's inadvertent or not." Well Your not done dealing with these yet R.J...

This season, Umberger was abused even more, again against the Bruins.

After throwing a nice and completely legal hit on Milan Lucic, Umberger gets crosschecked, slashed, slashed, slashed, and then crosschecked again by the sticks of Lucic and Boston goalie Tim Thomas. They only called 2 penalties, both to Lucic, 1 for slashing and 1 for crosschecking. This was uncharacteristic Boston, who are usually amongst the most disciplined teams in the league. (http://tiny.cc/v3n9x ; http://tiny.cc/0n4b2 ; http://tiny.cc/qyh9x ; http://tiny.cc/j2n5e)

Alright. So we've seen huge clean hits. We've seen dirty cheap shots. We've even seen slashing. So what haven't we seen? Well, we haven't seen Umberger miss any games. But that just changed courtesy of a hit by Anaheim's Jean-Francois Jacques from January 9th:

Umberger finished the game AND played 2 days later in Chicago. However, he didn't feel right during a practice after the game in Chicago and was later diagnosed with a concussion. Jacques was fined and suspended 3 games for the elbow. Interesting stat though. Umberger is going to have his streak of 291 games in a row end. He has not missed a game since joining the Blue Jackets which is amazing for someone with a history like his.

So the question arises. Why him?

Well many people (just like the uploader of the Jacques hit (with the title "Jean-Francois Jacques hammers R.J. "I love to skate with my head down" Umberger")) feel that it has to do with R.J.'s tendency to skate with his head down (ehem ehem Eric Lindros). That may be true with some of the early hits laid out on Umberger. But at this point, I think it's just R.J. being in the wrong place at the right times. Kinda like that guy from "The Comebacks".

So I hope R.J. comes back soon and his luck turns a little. Rumor has it concussions can be tricky to deal with so we'll have to wait and see.