Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 3)

The Florida Panthers were without forward Alexander Barkov again on Tuesday night, as they posted a big win in Detroit, 4-3. Barkov was sidelined with an upper-body injury, believed to be a hand injury, after blocking a shot last week. The team is being cautious with the young forward, making sure they don't exacerbate the injury, before he gets better.

This certainly won't help Stuart in Week Nine, as this will be the last couple games that Barkov will either miss or play for him, as the drop has already been made and now he is just waiting for it to become active on Monday.  Stuart's team is only 1 point out of the top 10 and needs some healthy bodies.

It was a costly loss for the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night, dropping a 1-0 decision to the Penguins and then losing much of their veteran leadership in the process.  First, Patrik Elias left the game in the 1st period, after getting hit with a Scott Gomez shot up high.  His status is unknown at the moment, but it is believed to be an upper-body injury.  The second being Jaromir Jagr, who was run over by Pittsburgh defender Robert Bortuzzo, suffering a head injury.  Bortuzzo is waiting for his call to the carpet to be scheduled, but it is on its way.  There were no concrete updates in the post-game pressers and nothing right away in the morning, so we'll keep an eye on this.

Elias belongs to Clayton in the standings, who is in the thick of the money race, sitting 1 point back of 3rd and 8 points up on 5th, so there is going to be a close eye paid to this injury, while Jagr belongs to Cam, who can't afford to slip any further, dropping down to 12th this week, now 25 points out of 3rd place.

It wasn't just Vincent Lecavalier in the press box for the Flyers, as another pool player found his way upstairs for the game between Philadelphia and San Jose.  Defenseman Michael Del Zotto found his way into the shuffle, as the team continued to lack results.  This new shuffle didn't necessarily help anything, as they still dropped the game to the Sharks, 2-1, so the shuffle may continue going forward.  It doesn't sound like a great atmosphere in the Flyers dressing room, as word has emerged that Lecavalier wants out.

Back to the new player on the news page, as Del Zotto was thought possibly be a sneaky pick for Allan, but with only 8 points in 22 games, it hasn't quite worked out that way.  I don't see Allan dropping Del Zotto, as he certainly isn't the worst blueliner on his roster.


An undisclosed injury forced Sharks forward Logan Couture from the game against the Flyers in the 3rd period, after colliding with Michael Raffl.  The collision is believed to have had some contact with the head, supposedly somewhat inadvertent, but it could be a head injury, nonetheless.  The Sharks will likely evaluate him in the next day or two,   San Jose doesn't play again until Thursday night, so they will have some time to figure out what ails one of their top forwards.

The teams who have been unlucky this year, have really been unlucky.  Ryan is one of those teams who have found that dire sense of bad luck and his team now resides in the race for the Olli bobblehead.  Now he hopes that Couture's injury isn't significant, so he won't miss too much time and keep him out of the basement.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.