Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 4)

Another injury I have somewhat missed the boat on in the last few weeks was that of Alex Chiasson of the Senators, who missed his second straight game, due to an undisclosed injury, on Tuesday night.  The young forward was reportedly hurt on Thursday last week and was put on the injury list as out day-to-day.  Since then, there really hasn't been anything posted on the kid and the Senators have gone 1-1-0 in his absence, so there couldn't be very much panic there at the moment.

In 44 games with the Sens this season, Chiasson only has 8 goals and 18 points, ranking him 279th overall in pool scoring, just below a couple of dropped players already this year.  Does this mean that Wilton may consider dropping him?  I suppose there is a certain possibility, depending on some other injury situations.

It was not a warm homecoming story for Winnipeg's Evander Kane, rather it was a frosty return to Vancouver, made possible by Jets head coach Paul Maurice, making him into a healthy scratch for the game against the Canucks.  Kane has obviously drawn the ire of his coaches and likely with some family and friends in the stands, Kane was not on the ice and there have been very few reasons given as to why or how long the coach intends to keep him out.  It kinda has that trading away feel to it, doesn't it?

I'm sure Grant K. wouldn't mind seeing one of his supposed goal scorers make the move to another NHL city, just for a fresh start and possibly a revitalized future in the league.  Grant's team hasn't had a bad start to the week, but his projected numbers for the rest of the week are not very good.

In something that would better resemble just some simple paperwork, the Tampa Bay Lightning have officially sent Evgeni Nabokov to the AHL after clearing waivers earlier in the week.  The expectation is that the veteran keeper won't report and start the process of filing some retirement papers, since he wouldn't be paid, if he was suspended for not reporting to the AHL.

Grant K. is already on top of this movement, as he has made Nabokov into his opening round drop of this week's Waiver Draft.  It would seem unlikely that Nabokov would have made a start this week anyways, so the loss to his team is minimal, but picking up someone new has some serious upside.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.