Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 29)

Word from the Ottawa Senators camp on Monday is that the line rushes in practice are suggesting that defenseman Patrick Wiercioch is bound to be a healthy scratch once again.  Wiercioch has been a whipping boy for the Senators coaches this year, both Paul MacLean and now Dave Cameron.  In only 19 games this season, Wiercioch has 1 goal and 3 assists, yet he has a +5 rating in the plus/minus department, which is tied for fourth on the team.  Wiercioch will make way for Chris Phillips tonight against the Sabres.

This is nothing new on Dale C.'s team, as you can tell from the number of games played this year.  Dale is 4 points out of the money and hasn't seen much in the way of points from Wiercioch, which would likely be the difference between sitting in 5th, as he is now, and 3rd place.

The busiest week on the NHL schedule gets underway tonight with 12 games on the docket, which means we'll have 24 goalies active. The early indication on Monday afternoon... every goalie starting tonight is in the hockey pool! Hooray!

There are five goalies unconfirmed on goaliepost.com at the time of this post, but they do list likely candidates for starts, which is fairly accurate, as things do change from hour to hour in some cases.

Four teams in the pool will have both goalies going for their teams and they are Benson, Cam, Dale B. and Dale C..  20 out of 23 teams have goalies going, which means there are three that don't... Wyllie, Mike and Ryan.

I think the biggest question mark comes from the Toronto Maple Leafs, as James Reimer is currently listed as the probable starter, but Jonathan Bernier did meet the team in Tampa Bay after missing Sunday night's game with an illness.  There has been no confirmation as to whether or not it will be Reimer or Bernier and it is likely that Christopher Gibson will be sent back to the minors.  Right now, Reimer is the probable goalie and if he gets bumped, that means Stuart goes to the list of teams without a goalie playing and Troy would be added to the teams that have both goalies going.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.