Draft Player News (Jan. 15)

The Minnesota Wild are now waiting on new information about Mikko Koivu and the reported shoulder injury that he suffered on Saturday night against the St. Louis Blues. According to one report on Sunday morning, there likely will not be an update on his condition until Monday afternoon, so we can just leave it at that for now.  This could be a pretty big blow to the Minnesota Wild, if it is indeed serious.

Not a good turn of events for Niesa S. and one of her top three forwards in the pool this season.  Koivu has played fairly well for Niesa, as a 5th round draft pick, but if this injury is going to keep the Finn out of action for a while, he spot in the top 10 may be challenged, as she is only 10 points up on 10th, sitting in the 8th position. There is some room to fall at the moment.  We'll know more about her situation on Monday.


The Nashville Predators were without their Calder Trophy nominee (through the midpoint of the season), Craig Smith, as he has been sidelined with a bout of the flu. The bug might just be going around there in the Nashville dressing room, which should mean that Smith won't be out of the line-up more than just the one game on Saturday night, so there shouldn't be too much to worry about at this point in time.

Smith was off to a rocket of a start at the beginning of the season, but since the Week Nine waiver draft, his production has slowed quite a bit, only picking up 5 points in 17 games for Derek W. in the draft.  The Predators had seen a lot of injuries in the last month or so, which may have led to a drop off in production.