Player Notes in the Draft (Apr 10)

The Montreal Canadiens have already clinched their playoff spot and they are fairly certain that they will meet the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs, so they are taking some precautionary measures with their line-up, saving themselves for, what they hope to be, a reasonably long playoff run. Goaltender Carey Price and defensemen Andrei Markov & Alexsey Emelin were held back in Montreal, while the team traveled to Chicago to take on the hard-hitting Blackhawks. All three will likely be used sparingly in the last week of the season, as they have all had some knocks during the season and would like to be 100% for Game 1.

Also being held out of the line-up on Wednesday night was forward Lars Eller, as he came down with a bit of a bug.  He has been listed as out day-to-day for now, likely with the expectation that he'll be ready for the team's next game, tonight at home to the Islanders.

We have some money implications here... as Markov belongs to Allan (1st), who is now holding a 3-point lead over Scott, while Stacey M. (4th) has Price and Emelin, who is 2 points behind 3rd and only 1 point up on 4th.  I would think that all three players would be dressing for tonight's game, but we'll wait and see for the official decision.

Eller, on the other hand, belongs to Grant (13th) and has no money implications.

Great news in the Pittsburgh Penguins camp, as Kristopher Letang has returned to the line-up, only a matter of weeks after he had suffered his stroke. Letang suffered his stroke at the beginning of February, which puts him a couple of months on the shelf, but thankfully, he has recovered enough to strap on the gear and play again. Letang was able to record an assist in the 4-3 shootout win over Detroit on Wednesday night and he recorded over 22 minutes of ice time as well.

Letang's return is worth mentioning for the sake of how incredible of a recovery it was, not so much his implications on the pool, as Stuart sits in 18th place and may only move up one more position, at best, before the end of the week.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are going to try and hold on to 3rd place in the Atlantic Division without their number one keeper, Ben Bishop, as he has been shut down for the week to deal with his upper-body injury.  It sounds like Bishop may have re-aggravated the wrist injury he suffered earlier in the year, which kept him out a number of games.  The Lightning are going to be somewhat hush-hush over the injury, but with the playoffs still a week away, they can afford to be right now.

Someone who can't afford this loss is Scott (2nd), who is really trying to track down Allan for top spot in the standings.  Scott has only made up 2 points in the standings this week and needs 4 more points to move past him, since he doesn't have the tie-breaker on his side.  Hold onto your hats!