Wednesday Morning Injury Report

Against Montreal on Tuesday night, the Thrashers were without Mathieu Schneider, as he was placed on the injured list with an upper body injury and is out day-to-day. There was no indication that the veteran blueliner had left Sunday's game against St. Louis in the game's recap, so it could be fair to assume that the injury occurred in practice. For the Thrashers sake, it has to be hoped that Schneider's injury isn't too serious, as they soldier on for a playoff spot. Schneider is also a Draft pick of Derek's and was picked a few times in the Selection Sheet pool.

Another Draft defenseman casualty for Larry, as Sergei Zubov missed a second straight game last night with an undisclosed injury. Zubov missed last night's contest versus the Flames and Sunday's contest against the Oilers with this undisclosed injury, but the Stars have him listed as out day-to-day, which is still fairly vague in the grand scheme of things. Stay tuned to any further injury reports there.

The Oilers don't expect to have Robert Nilsson in their line-up tonight, as they take on the Stars again. The Box 7 forward is reportedly doubtful for tonight's game with an upper body injury. His absence will likely shake up the Oilers' line-up a little bit, either giving Sam Gagner and Andrew Cogliano a new linemate or breaking up the two of them to separate lines. Either way, the Oilers will have to try and generate some new offense from this latest shuffle.

The Flyers had some good news and bad news on Tuesday night, as they saw the return of Daniel Briere to their line-up after missing a couple weeks with injury, but on the way out was defenseman Matt Carle, who was out with a lower body injury. Without having to disclose what the injury is, your guess is as good as mine as to th extent of the injury and when he'll be back.

The Capitals were once again without the services of the often injured defenseman, Tom Poti, a Draft pick of Dale B. and a Box 27 player on the Sheet. Poti is out with a groin injury and has already missed a couple of games. The Capitals have been rather unlucky with injuries, as they now have eight regulars on the shelf, but do have the possibility of getting a couple of them back for their next game on Thursday.

The move to Phoenix was supposed to be a beneficial one for Ken Klee, as he was picked up to help out the young team on the ice in their own end. Since being picked up on waivers, Klee has now spent a few games as a healthy scratch with the Coyotes and is looking like he's a waiver claim gone awry. His numbers aren't terrible this season, averaging over 13 minutes a game this year, he is a +2 and has 2 assists in 16 games between Atlanta and Phoenix.

Finally, it looks like Radim Vrbata isn't having much luck with the coaching staff after the changes in Tampa. Vrbata only has 6 points this season, after signing a 3-year, $9 million deal over the summer in the Free Agent Frenzy. With a contract like that, he should be in the top five in team scoring, but he currently isn't close to that. If it's a system problem, I would think that he could be on the trading block to try and improve his numbers somewhere else, but at $3 million against the cap per year, it would have to be guaranteed that his numbers would go up for a team to acquire him.


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