Draft Player News (Oct 1)

The Calgary Flames have been nursing a couple of key injuries, one to Jarome Iginla, which we knew already, and another to Rene Bourque, who has been dealing with an undisclosed ailment, which has been keeping him out of preseason action over the last couple of weeks. There is no indication as to what the injury is or whether or not he will be ready to go when the Flames open up their regular season next weekend, but we'll be keeping a close eye on his situation.

Bourque was a 6th round pick for Darren S., who is looking for big things from the rugged Flames winger.  Consider Bourque day-to-day for the time being.

The Dallas Stars are nursing some key injuries, which have the potential of keeping a couple of key forwards out on opening night, but the likelihood does sound slim. Nevertheless, both Brendan Morrow and Jamie Benn were held out of Saturday afternoon's contest against the Blues, due to a knee and groin problem, respectively.  The Stars, obviously, are playing this one closer to the chest, but I think we can expect them in the line-up on Friday, when the Stars open up their season against the Blackhawks at home.

Morrow, a 10th round pick for Benson G., and Benn is a 5th round pick of John P., so we kind of know who is a bit more important going forward in the pool.  But with both likely to be in the line-up, it shouldn't cause much worry.

The Red Wings have a couple of preseason games left on their schedule and they will be holding Pavel Datsyuk out of both of them for precautionary reasons, as their star forward is dealing with some slight back issues. Obviously, the team wants to keep Datsyuk as healthy as possible going into the regular season and they do expect him to be ready for opening night, which goes Friday night, at home to the Senators.

Datsyuk was a 2nd round pick for Dale B., who picked him 30th overall this season.  Datsyuk is projected to quite well this season, if he stays healthy for 75+ games, so Dale B. is hoping that can be the case right away.

The Rangers have travelled to Europe to start the season, but in order to get themselves ready for opening night on Thursday, they do have to cut their active roster down to the 23-man roster, although I believe they will have a number of players technically in the minors along for the ride. Included in that group is defenseman Tim Erixon, who had a great training camp and preseason, but couldn't quite crack the opening night roster. He has technically been sent down to the minors, but will likely be an early call-up when injuries occur this season.

This isn't great news for Leon G., who had big hopes pinned on the Swedish prospect, for some pretty good points.  We shouldn't count him out just yet, but it's not a positive sign to see one player get sent down to the minors, regardless.

This week, St. Louis Blues defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo suffered an upper-body injury, which has kept him out of preseason action. Colaiacovo's injury has not been disclosed, nor the severity of the injury, so there is no definitive word as to how long the team expects him to be out just yet, so we'll just call it day-to-day, until further notice.

In the draft, Chris M. is holding his breath, hoping that his 13th round sleeper pick will be okay and ready to go for the team's opening game, which goes Saturday against the Predators.

On Saturday, the NHL Department of Player Safety decided to suspend Maple Leafs forward Clarke MacArthur for two regular season games after delivering an elbow to Detroit's Justin Abedelkader at the end of regulation in their preseason game on Friday night. There was no injury on the play and there was no back history for MacArthur, which limited his sentence, but will now be a repeat offender going forward.