Player Notes in the Draft (Nov 28)

A bout of back spasms were to blame for the lack of Paul Stastny from the Colorado Avalanche line-up, as they took on the St. Louis Blues.  Stastny has been listed as out day-to-day with his back spasms and that generally seems to last a few days, but could extend into a week or two, just as easily.

On the plus side for Colorado, they did welcome back Matt Duchene from his oblique injury, which forced him to miss a few games.  The switching of bodies didn't help, because the Avalanche lost to the Blues, 2-1.

Stastny belongs to Stacey C., who has fallen back to the second group in the standings, now 9 points out of 4th place.  Duchene is one of Cindy's picks this year and his return will look to improve on her standing, 16th in the pool.  Cindy sits 31 points out of the prizes right now.

The coaching staff of the New Jersey Devils have not been terribly pleased with Damien Brunner's game of late, as he hasn't generated anything for offense in the last little while, including very few shots on goal. On Wednesday night, he was a healthy scratch, watching the game from the press box, against the Carolina Hurricanes.  The move didn't seem to help the team any, as they dropped a 4-3 decision in that game.  It would seem likely that Brunner should filter back into the line-up for the weekend.

It hasn't been a bad start to the week for Doug K., who has 10 points and sits in the middle of the pack to start the second segment, but the bodies keep falling out of the line-up for him.  He's likely hoping that Brunner gets his game in gear and starts to score again, now that the coaching staff are all over him.

It was an undisclosed lower-body injury, which kept forward Matt Read out of the line-up on Wednesday night, as the Philadelphia Flyers took on the Tampa Bay Lightning.  The early reports are suggesting that the injury is minor and that he will be back in the line-up really soon and will currently be listed as out day-to-day.  

This appears to be a minor blip on the radar for Mike S., who has Read in the draft this year.  Mike's skaters has kept relatively healthy this year, as they currently rank 5th in the pool in collected skater games with 288.

It is likely that a lack of offense was the main reason cited for Jake Gardiner's night off from the Maple Leafs' line-up on Wednesday night, as they took on the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Gardiner has only picked up 5 assists in 24 games for the Leafs this year, which is likely well-below the team's expectations for him.  The Leafs didn't struggle to score goals last night, but they did fail to keep pucks out of their own net, losing 6-5 in the shootout.

Gardiner belongs to one of our pool leaders, Allan S., who doesn't seem to be missing the blueliner's offense at all.  Allan's defense hasn't been spectacular, but the rest of his team is picking up the slack.  I don't think he'll miss too many more games from Gardiner here soon.