Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 15)

It seems like the hard, high hits are coming at a furious pace these days, as the injuries start to mount again in the league. On Saturday night, Detroit Red Wings forward Justin Abdelkader was hit high in the head by Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Deryk Engelland, forcing him from the game with a head injury. Abdelkader has been confirmed to be out from their game on Sunday and Engelland has been confirmed to appear before the Department of Player Safety later in the week.

Any time Tony seems to get his team's feet steady with some more healthy bodies, his team just takes another hit.  Abdelkader belongs to Tony this season and his team finished Saturday in 19th place, 16 points in Week Eleven, 3 points better than the potential Basement Dwellers.

The collective in Pittsburgh is holding their breath, waiting on the word surrounding the injuries suffered to both defenseman Kristopher Letang and forward Evgeni Malkin. Letang was a late scratch from the game on Saturday night against the Detroit Red Wings, later was said to be an upper-body injury. During the game, Malkin was forced from the game with a lower-body injury, believed to be the leg.  The coaching staff made some comments after the game, but they were not very helpful in trying to distinguish the severity of the injury, so we'll have to wait and see on this one.

If either of these players are out for any significant amount of time, the race for Steven Stamkos got a lot more interesting, as Stuart G., who sits in 21st place after Saturday, 6 points out of last place, has BOTH of these players and would suffer greatly without them.  I think Stuart may turn blue, as he holds his breath here.

There isn't a lot of details around right now, but St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir Sobotka reportedly left last night's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets with an upper-body injury.  This injury comes only days after being the victim of the high hit that saw Maple Leafs forward David Clarkson get suspended for two games.  The only real word we've seen from the Blues' Twitter account was that the coaching staff said he's fine and he'll be listed as day-to-day at worst. 

Sobotka belongs to Dale B. in the draft this year, who fell out of the top half of the standings this week, with one day left.  Dale has only seen 16 points this week as well and is now 2 points out of the top half.