Draft Player News (Mar. 3)

As noted in the Sheet news down below, the Blackhawks are running with some real depth on their squad, especially due to some of the key injuries and the lack of call-ups they can have down the road. Another regular healthy scratch made it back up to the press box on Friday night, as defenseman Sean O'Donnell was a healthy scratch again for the game against the Senators.  With the acquisition of Johnny Oduya at the deadline, O'Donnell has been penciled out of the line-up for now, but when a couple more players get healthy, it could be more of a permanent move.

No money impact with this move, as Munden G. has O'Donnell this season and is sitting down in 18th spot. Munden's defense has hurt him this season, having only collected 68 points in total this season, well-below the pool average of 91 points.

In the Red Wings' 6-0 slaughtering of the Wild on Friday night, the team lost a piece of the line-up in Todd Bertuzzi, who left the game with a groin injury.  As of late on Friday night, there was no immediate update on the condition of Bertuzzi, so there was no word on his availability for Sunday afternoon's Central Division clash with the Blackhawks.  Generally, if the move was precautionary, there would have been some mention of it, so this could be a significant injury to consider, but he'll be day-to-day, until otherwise noted.

The race for last place has become a little bit more interesting, as Darren S. pulled himself out of 22nd in the standings and moved up to 21st this week, but he has Bertuzzi and a 1-point lead over last place.  The battle for the basement has really started to heat up.  It should heat up, since that's where the furnace is.

Even more injury troubles for the Minnesota Wild, as rough-and-tumble forward Cal Clutterbuck left Friday night's game against the Red Wings, due to an upper-body injury.  Clutterbuck has suffered from charley horses at a couple different points in the season, but an upper-body injury is a bit of a new one.  There was no update from the team on Saturday morning, so he'll remain day-to-day with the upper-body injury, as we approach a Sunday evening clash against the Avalanche.

Darren's team takes another hit with the loss of Clutterbuck, already having lost Bertuzzi to injury above in this post.  Darren made up 5 points on Derek W. in the week, to give him that 1-point edge, but now with a couple of new injuries, there could be some concern as to whether or not he'll be able to keep 21st place.

The New York Islanders announced on Saturday morning that Michael Grabner will not be able to participate in Saturday afternoon's game against the Bruins in Boston, because of an illness.  Grabner's spot will be taken by Nino Niederreiter, who has been a healthy scratch for the last few games this season and I would expect to see Grabner back in the line-up before too long.  Grabner has not been able to replicate the same sort of success he had after moving to Long Island last season, scoring only 15 goals and 10 assists in 63 games this season.

In the race for 3rd place money, Stacey C., who has Grabner, is trying to chase down Stuart G. on Saturday, trailing only by 2 points and will now be without one of his speedy scorers.  Stuart has a few more games already scheduled for the remainder of the week than Stacey, will gain an extra one, thanks to this scratching.