Player Notes in the Draft (Nov 2)

Reports are surfacing on Saturday morning that the New Jersey Devils will be without centre Travis Zajac on Saturday evening, as the team plays host to the Flyers. Zajac is reportedly suffering from an ankle injury and will remain questionable for Sunday's game against the Minnesota Wild.  It sounds like Zajac caught a rut in practice on Friday, rolled his ankle and it is likely too tender to play.  Zajac will be listed as out day-to-day for the time being.

Tough break for Wes M., as his team has struggled to find some consistency in the year.  Wes goes into Saturday's action as the leading candidate for the Basement Dweller nod in the newsletter, picking up a lowly 7 points through the first five days of the week.  This injury will not help him out any.

It doesn't look like defenseman Joe Corvo is getting much respect in the Ottawa Senators line-up, as he found himself in the press box again on Friday night. Corvo has 5 points in seven games with the Senators this season, but missing out on six games without injury doesn't seem to make too much sense, unless he has lost a step or two defensively.  Ottawa lost 5-4 in the shootout to the Islanders on Friday night, so it might not be Corvo, who is the catalyst to bad defense.

Corvo belongs to Leo M. this season and is heaping on the trouble of getting those skater games played.  Through Friday night, Leo's team has only seen 134 skater games accumulated for his team, which is below the pool average of 141.  Leo currently sits 14th, 5 points out of the top 10.

It sounded like Friday night was a good night for fighting for the Philadelphia Flyers. In an embarrassing loss to the Washington Capitals, they further embarrassed themselves with a line brawl, trying to make up some pride. In doing so, they have suffered some injuries, including forward Vincent Lecavalier, who suffered some facial injuries and will be on the shelf for a little while. Lecavalier is not expected to be in the line-up on Saturday, as they face the New Jersey Devils and there is no exact mention of when he is expected back.

Lecavalier has already missed some time this year for John S., who is fighting his way out of the basement of the pool.  John's team hasn't been great over the last few weeks, but it has been getting steadily better, but that was with bodies getting healthy again.  The loss of Lecavalier may knock that back to square one.

An injury situation to keep an eye on is Alex Ovechkin's upper-body injury. Ovechkin missed the 7-0 drubbing by the Capitals against the Flyers on Friday night and his presence would have likely made that a far bigger farce than it already was. Nevertheless, Ovechkin had missed practice on Thursday, missed Friday's game and is now expected to miss Saturday night's game against the Panthers. The reports are saying that Ovechkin suffered the injury on Monday, so this is something that is lingering a little longer than anyone in the organization probably wants.

Ovechkin belongs to one of the money teams, Brenda's team, which goes into Saturday night in 3rd place, 2 points out of 2nd and 6 points out of 1st.  Losing a 1st round pick like Ovechkin will be tough to live without, especially with some hot teams on the chase for the money this week.