Draft Player News (Feb. 29)

The Detroit Red Wings didn't seem to be fussed that they were playing the Columbus Blue Jackets without both Nicklas Lidstrom and Kyle Quincey, who each sat out with an injury on Tuesday night. Lidstrom was dealing with a sore ankle, while Quincey was dealing with a sore groin, but the team through Joey MacDonald in net, Doug Janik on the blueline and still came away with a big 5-2 win.  Both defensemen are considered to be out day-to-day, but there was no official word on how much time they would actually miss, if any, past Tuesday night.

There was some money race impact here, as Niesa S., who has Lidstrom, missed out on a key scoring game for the Red Wings, as her team sits in 8th spot, now 21 points out of 5th place and the money.  There is a good chance that it would have been beneficial for her guy to be in on that one.  Quincey belongs to Chris M., who is well below the money and likely didn't miss him quite as much.

Another couple injuries to report on with another team on Tuesday night, as the Florida Panthers went into battle against the Toronto Maple Leafs without both Kris Versteeg and Tomas Kopecky, both out due to injury.  Versteeg is dealing with a lower-body injury, which has him listed as out day-to-day, but the team expect him to be out of the line-up through the weekend, but it wouldn't be surprising if he returned early.  Kopecky, on the other hand, is reportedly dealing with a minor undisclosed injury and he has already been deemed ready to go for Thursday night, when the team is in Winnipeg.

There's no real money impact out of Florida, but these two players belong to teams in their own race, between Ryan M., who has Versteeg, chasing down Brenda F., who has Kopecky.  Brenda is 12th and Ryan is 13th, separated by a point after Tuesday night's action, but that's about the only impact we see here.

The Maple Leafs were not very busy around the trade deadline, so trying to get out of the funk that they are in has to be more of an internal matter.  On Tuesday night, the Leafs decided to bring Mike Komisarek back into the line-up, after being a healthy scratch for a number of games and that saw Cody Franson come out to make room for him.  Franson, who was a healthy scratch on a regular basis in the early part of the season, was no stranger to the press box, but since the Leafs couldn't string a win together with the line-up change, I would imagine Franson will figure back into the line-up for their next game.

This was a game lost in defense of the lead for Clayton C., who now has a slight 3-point lead on Dale B. in the draft standings.  With the likelihood of Franson coming back for the team's next game, it will be another body in the line-up to help the defense going forward.