Sheet Player News (Dec. 4)

The New York Islanders had a rough night on the line-up card in Dallas on Saturday night, as they dropped a few players, two players specifically on the sheet and one in the draft. On the sheet, the notable names were Box 25 forward Nino Niederreiter and Box 31 goaltender Rick DiPietro, the first suffering an upper-body injury after a high hit from Mark Fistric, while the latter was hurt on an innocent push across his crease, injuring his groin. There was an indication that Niederreiter has suffered concussion-like symptoms immediately after the game, which isn't good news for him, while DiPietro's immediate status was not disclosed, but it looks like the crease is all Al Montoya's from now on. Make your trades, if you have to on both of these players, but let's face it... no one took DiPietro.

Tough guy and non-pool player, Chris Neil, returned to the Senators line-up on Saturday night from an ankle injury, which meant that someone had to come out of the line-up. Well, since Nikita Filatov hasn't found his groove in the league with the Senators, he was more than a reasonable choice to fill the spot of healthy scratch. The Box 21 forward had all sorts of potential upon joining the Senators, but he has not shown any flashes of brilliance and has spent most of the season in the AHL. I can't see this experiment lasting too much longer. Will there be any team that will give this kid a chance?

The last defenseman pairing has certainly become a point of contention for the Maple Leafs coaching staff, as they just are not getting the right kind of play to earn any sort of confidence for regular play. On Saturday night, Box 30 defenseman Keith Aulie was made into a healthy scratch, making way for Cody Franson to play against the Boston Bruins, likely citing a little bit more experience in the league. That didn't help much, as the Leafs were burned in the 3rd period by the Cup champs. Hard to say whether or not Aulie will get another shot before heading back down to the AHL, so we'll wait and see.