Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 16)

The Tampa Bay Lightning are 2nd in the Atlantic Division through Wednesday night's games and have been playing some good hockey, so in order to prepare their prized rookie, Jonathan Drouin, and not disrupt the flow of the team right now, the Bolts have opted to send their youngster down to the AHL on a conditioning stint, before joining the big club for the rest of the season. Drouin has been out with a fractured thumb since rookie camp and his return has been cautiously monitored and this assignment is just proof that they don't want to rush their future star.  The maximum amount of time he can be down is two weeks, but I would have to say it's 50/50 that he stays for the entire two weeks... on pure speculation only.

It's kind of a good sign for Dale C., who has taken a flyer out on Drouin this season, hoping for some big returns.  Having already missed Week One and likely to miss all of Week Two now, possibly Week Three, it kind of hurts his pool team's progress, for sure.  Dale sits in 8th place after Wednesday night, already 17 points out of 1st place.

The St. Louis Blues have a couple of games before the end of the week and they have announced the goaltending situation, which has some pool implications, for sure. Brian Elliott, who has seen the first couple of starts already this year, will get to go tonight in Los Angeles, while Jake Allen, will get his first start of the season on Saturday, when the Blues visit Arizona to take on the Coyotes. It would also seem likely that Elliott would get the Sunday start in Anaheim, if the pattern goes as planned.

Elliott belongs to Clayton in the pool, while Mike has Allen this season.  Going into Thursday night's action, they stand together in the standings, both with 25 points, already falling behind the curve in the early part of the season.  Both Clayton and Mike are 20 points back of 1st place, but neither have really seen big involvement from the NHL schedule, so they should be able to make some points up later on in the segment.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.