With the NHL’s star-sapped All-Star weekend upon us like a cold winter rain, an accompanying feeling of malaise is understandable.

Sidney Crosby is missing because of a head shot he suffered, Alex Ovechkin is voluntarily absent because of a head hit he didn’t appreciate being punished for, and maybe we are all feeling a little woozy from the blows they have dealt to the sport itself. Sid and Alex were once to be hockey’s version of the NBA’s Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and in one way or another, they now are no more a part of the sport’s big weekend than are Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr.

Some other top players are absent because of injury — Chicago’s Jonathan Toews being the most notable — but maybe that’s a good thing. Hockey has a concussion problem and an injury problem, and perhaps it takes having some of its best and brightest miss a showcase event to force the NHL to address the problem.

As much as it pains me to admit that Brendan Shanahan’s inconsistent, season-long suspension spree is a good thing — the eight-game penalty he handed to Blue Jackets defenseman James Wisniewski to begin the season started the team on its plunge to oblivion — the sport has to do something to make sure that its best players aren’t setting records for aspirin consumption and games missed.

Even in Columbus, where the Blue Jackets have no All-Stars, it’s hard not to notice what’s going on. Their problems didn’t end with the hit that got Wisniewski busted. Defenseman Radek Martinek played only seven games, suffered a concussion and is out for the season, and durable R.J. Umberger’s consecutive-games streak of 291 ended this month because of a concussion. It would be difficult to blame goaltender Steve Mason’s problems on the concussion he suffered during a November practice, but there’s no denying that head hits and head injuries have adversely affected this beleaguered squad.

Because of the surge in concussion-related absences — USA Today recently reported that 71 NHL players have missed games for that reason this season — is in part related to better monitoring of the symptoms, this isn’t an easy problem to get a handle on. It is made worse, however, by the NHL’s refusal to admit it has a problem.

To be sure, some head injuries have occurred by chance. It’s impossible to legislate against things such as inadvertent falls or collisions with teammates. But many concussions are the result of direct blows to the head, and the best way to stop them is to outlaw all of them — not just those from behind — and come down hard on players who administer them.

Slowing the game is one option; the faster players skate, the more likely the resulting collisions will cause serious injury. Bringing the center red line back into use might help, because play would be stopped when any pass crosses either blue line and red line without being touched (the old “two-line pass” rule, which was ditched in 2005). On the other hand, the players with the puck are the ones who benefit most from free-flowing movement in the neutral zone, and they’re not the ones doing the hitting. More study is required before the NHL turns back the clock, but it’s worth considering.

Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ray Shero wants his fellow GMs to discuss eliminating the “trapezoid rule” and allowing goaltenders to play the puck anywhere behind the goal line. He said he thinks it has become dangerous for defensemen who go back to play the puck and have forwards hitting them at full speed. Softer shoulder and elbow pads might help, too.

None of these changes would completely solve the problem; hockey always has been a fast, violent game. But a slower, cleaner game with stars is preferable to a faster, dirtier game with unknowns.

It doesn’t take a marketing genius to know that the sport suffers when its best players are making news by riding an exercise bike instead of by scoring goals.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com