Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 1)

It hasn't been a great week for updates, nothing has quite worked out all week to be consistent in the blog writing game.  Nevertheless, we are on the cusp of Waiver Draft week and this will be a week where I'll be staying on top of everything, starting now.  Welcome to February, everyone... we are almost into the final third of the season.

The New Jersey Devils are in their own healthy scratch rotation this season, something we've seen on a few teams already this year. The last two games, Friday night at home to the Penguins and Saturday, home to the Panthers, defenseman Eric Gelinas was a healthy scratch for the side.  Gelinas has been somewhat of a regular healthy scratch, picking up 15 games in the press box this season and has been a semi-regular on the blog as well.  When he has been playing, he has 4 goals and 11 points in 34 games, only good enough for 424th overall in pool scoring today.

Gelinas has been the less of the four defensemen that Wilton has taken this season and in my Week Eighteen Waiver Draft mock-up, he was a drop in the 2nd round, so it will be interesting to see if Wilton will move on from him.  Wilton finishes the week in line for the Basement Dweller, with 10 points and no games left to play, down in 12th place and could drop one spot still, to better his draft position.

We are waiting to hear what the final results are on the tests being done to defenseman Christian Ehrhoff and his upper-body injury, although it is beginning to sound a lot like a concussion. Ehrhoff was not able to play on Friday night in New Jersey and it sounds like he is out for Sunday's game against the Predators, but these tests will reveal whether or not he'll be able to play on the next road trip, which starts next week through Western Canada.  He's day-to-day right now, but it could turn around pretty quickly and it might mean he'll be out indefinitely.

Brian has had a very disappointing season from his blueline, where no one has been anywhere near where they should have been, including Ehrhoff, who only has 13 points in 43 games this season.  By my mock-up, he will be changing a couple blueliners next week, but he might need a lot more than that to get up to the top 10 this year.

There appears to be another bug traveling around the Calgary Flames locker room this week and on Saturday night, it held forward Jiri Hudler out of action for their game against their provincial rivals, the Oilers. Hudler is believed to be out day-to-day for now and his availability for Monday's game, home to the Jets, does seem somewhat likely, but we'll see.

Hudler is having an okay year for Mike in the pool, picking up 14 goals and 41 points, but overall, Mike's team has been a little less than impressive, down in 20th place, only 3 points clear of 21st.  Mike will need to make a big move at the Waiver Draft to keep from staying in contention for the Olli.

A late note from Sunday morning, as the Tampa Bay Lightning have placed veteran goalie Evgeni Nabokov on waivers, but there has been no indication about what this will mean for the 39-year old keeper. The team has already recalled Andrei Vasilevskiy from the AHL, so Nabokov may make his way down to the AHL, while he waits to see if anyone will want him around, but after what Martin Brodeur went through, it does seem rather unlikely that anyone will take that chance.

I don't think it is any coincidence that Nabokov was the first drop for Grant K. in my mock Waiver Draft last week, but at the time, Grant was dropping/picking in the 7th overall spot, now he'll likely go 6th, as he had been bumped in the week.  There isn't much for goaltending left, but anyone who is playing will be better than Nabokov.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.