Draft Player News (Feb. 18)

Saturday afternoon in Columbus, the Blue Jackets decided again to scratch defenseman Grant Clitsome from their line-up for their game against the Blackhawks, where they got trounced rather decidedly. Clitsome has been a regular healthy scratch for the team over the last few weeks, but generally drawing back into the line-up right away. In 49 games this season, Clitsome has 4 goals and 9 assists, which is only good enough for 97th in scoring among defensemen.

Not very good news for Chris M., as he battles for 18th position in the standings, but that really isn't much of a storyline at this point in the season.

In the game against the Blackhawks, there are reports that James Wisniewski has suffered another injury, this time to his groin, which forced him out of the contest and will now likely have him on the shelf for an undetermined amount of time. Wisniewski will likely be re-evaluated on Sunday, which will give us an update for the newsletter.

This begins a very rough patch for Niesa S., who is currently in the mix for the money.  Going into Saturday evening's festivities, her team sits 8 points out of the final money position in 8th spot.  As we continue through the next couple notes, this will become a rough day for her squad.

In the Minnesota Wild game against the Blues on Saturday afternoon, Mikko Koivu was nowhere to be found on the ice, as he was held out of the game due to an undisclosed injury.  The team has suggested that the injury is minor and he won't be out of the line-up for very long, but it is rather puzzling that the Wild haven't disclosed anything about the injury yet.  Expect an update, if the injury is going to be any longer than a day-to-day problem.

This is another game already missed for Niesa's pool team, which didn't help her cause in the afternoon and it may not help next week, when the Wild go again, but we'll have to wait and see what's going on with him.

And finally, a bout of the flu kept Jaroslav Halak out of the net for the Blues against the Wild today, as the team called up Ben Bishop to back-up Brian Elliott today.  I'm not too sure if this was going to be a scheduled start for Halak on Saturday afternoon, so it may not have been much of anything today, but if it was, this is certainly worth noting.  The Blues beat Minnesota, 4-0, on Saturday afternoon, so it could have been at least a win.

It may have been 2 points, it could have been 4 points, which would have, at least, put Niesa's team in 6th place, but that didn't happen.  This illness won't likely keep Halak on the shelf, but Niesa's team still sits in 8th.