Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 5)

Returning from his hip problems, the Nashville Predators welcomed Pekka Rinne back to the crease as their starting goalie, but failed to give him any scoring support, losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1. With Rinne back in, it meant someone had to come out and that was Devan Dubnyk, who cleared waivers on Tuesday, was the guy up in the press box.

Dubnyk, who was acquired from the Oilers earlier in the season, did not adequately fill the role left behind by Rinne through his injury, which left the goaltending duties to fall on Carter Hutton, which may mean Dubnyk is on the move somewhere in the next few hours... most likely, to the minors.

Stacey C., who sits in 2nd place after Wednesday night's action, now sees a 10-point gap ahead of him and a 0-point gap between himself and Chris for 3rd place.  He has already been running without Dubnyk for the most part, so even a drop down to the minors may not sink his team quite yet.

It's Trade Deadline time again and this means that teams may look to protect their assets, which they plan to move during this frenzy.  On Tuesday night, the New York Islanders saved one of the biggest assets available today in Thomas Vanek, making him a healthy scratch against the Winnipeg Jets.  The Islanders were able to sneak out an overtime victory against the Jets, despite not having one of their key scorers in the line-up, but wins are not on their mind now, as the Islanders continue to be sellers.

Touching on Stacey C. earlier, the team tied with him, belonging to Chris, has Vanek and is holding his breath, waiting to see where he ends up at the deadline.  If he can find a spot where offense is the order of the day, Chris could find his way to the top of the table.

Incredibly bad news for the Vancouver Canucks dropped on Tuesday, as they will be without Daniel Sedin for the foreseeable future, as he suffered a hamstring injury during the Heritage Classic and the team doesn't have any immediate timetable for his return.

Sedin wasn't in the line-up on Tuesday night against the Coyotes, where they lost 1-0, missing out on his 13 goals and 27 assists in 63 games this season.

This is also a huge loss for Grant, who currently sits in 12th place, but has had an excellent start to Week Twenty-One, already collecting 10 points through two nights.  Grant is 19 points out of the prizes and is among the basement dwellers in the third segment.  The prognosis isn't good for his team going forward.

The Winnipeg Jets have plenty of concern going forward on Trade Deadline Day, as they await the results of an MRI on one of their best players, Mark Scheifele, who suffered a knee injury on Tuesday night against the Islanders.  There wasn't any update to start the day out of Winnipeg, but if the Jets are going to make a playoff push, they need Scheifele to be healthy or they will need to make a move to fill the void that he leaves behind.  He'll be day-to-day until further notice.

Wes has Scheifele this season, but his 15th place standing in the draft may not improve after the Trade Deadline, especially with this injury on the books.  We'll likely have an update within the next day or two.