Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 2)

Not much for injuries on Monday night, despite five games in the schedule, so we'll show some returns, just to keep the blog populated. For the Florida Panthers, Jussi Jokinen returned from illness and hit the ice and Roberto Luongo suited up, but didn't play last night. Luongo is expected to play this week and it seems likely that he'll start in Detroit on Wednesday.

This is all good news as we go through the Waiver Draft processes, as teams look for bodies to come back, instead of dropping injured bodies.  Leo gets a forward back, while Stuart likely gets some goalie starts back on a regular basis.

Defenseman Tom Gilbert returned to the Canadiens line-up, but his participation going forward is sketchy going forward.  The veteran blueliner only has 3 points in 24 games, which makes him ripe for the picking, when it comes time to make scratches in the line-up.

This also means that he should be ripe for the picking in the Waiver Draft, as Tony looks to improve his standing in the pool, trying to push his team into the money.

We didn't think that Chris Kreider was going to be out for very long, given that most of the days away for personal reasons only generally mean one game away.  As expected, Kreider did return to the Rangers line-up for their game against the Lightning, but didn't figure into the scoring.

Kreider was not in consideration for a drop in the Waiver Draft, nor will he be for the second round.  One game away, that's all.

Jonathan Drouin came down from the Lightning press box to play against the Rangers on Monday night, but only had 10 minutes worth of ice-time, which has to be a concern for hockey pool teams.  With only 9 points in 18 games, he isn't scoring nearly at the pace anyone projected and at what little ice-time he's getting, it shouldn't figure to improve.

Dale C. isn't far from making his first selection in the Waiver Draft, so Drouin is probably on notice, maybe more so for the second round, but he's likely in the midst of some consideration.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.