The Edmonton Oilers sure have been prevalent on the blog these last few days, as there is lots going on up there in Central Alberta. More injury news dropped on Thursday afternoon, as the team expects to be without defenseman Justin Schultz for the next 2-to-4 weeks, as he is dealing with a back problem. Schultz was thought to have just a minor lower-body issue earlier in the week, but management came out with a press call on Thursday to make the significant injury announcement.It's hard to say whether or not Schultz has been dealing with the injury for long, but his numbers may make a reasonable argument that he may have been struggling the issue for a while, as he has only picked up 1 assist in the first nine games of the season.
This is another significant blow to Stacey C.'s blueline, as he is already without Duncan Keith for the long-term, Stacey will be suffering through the better part of the first segment of the season from the back end. His team finished Thursday night in 19th place, 27 points out of the money already. These two injuries will certainly hold his team back, but with lots of hockey left to play, he could leave it to the rest of his team to get the job done.
Click here for the updated injury/news page on the website
A lower-body injury was the reason why Buffalo Sabres forward Tyler Ennis was out of the lineup on Thursday night, as the Sabres took on the Penguins. There wasn't a great deal of detail about the injury, just that he was going to be out day-to-day for the time being. His status for tonight's game against the Flyers is still up in the air.
Well, the demotion to the minors didn't last too long for Flames goalie Karri Ramo, as the injury to Jonas Hiller is thought to be significant enough to warrant the recall of the Finnish netminder. Although there hasn't been an official announcement about Hiller's injury, it appears that Ramo's recall isn't an emergency recall, which means when Hiller is healthy again, there will be a trio of goalies that will all have to pass through waivers to make it down to the minors. Very interesting.
It looks like Chicago forward Teuvo Teravainen was a healthy scratch on Thursday night, as the Blackhawks were in Winnipeg to take on the Jets. There were no reports of any injury concerns for the young Finn, so the next likely situation was that he was a scratch. Teravainen hasn't been very noticeable in the Blackhawks' lineup early on this year, so maybe a healthy scratch is something to kick him in the rear end.
The Canadiens were a decent bet for being the team that helps Alex Semin bounce back from a couple bad seasons in Carolina, but with only 3 points in 10 games, Semin hasn't exactly been producing well enough to stay in the lineup. On Thursday night in Edmonton, Semin was finally made into a healthy scratch and unless he can get his game back together, he may find a few more nights in the press box.
The Tampa Bay broadcast team were rather puzzled to see Jonathan Drouin's name on the scratches list, ahead of the game against the Colorado Avalanche, thinking it was just a healthy scratch keeping the sophomore forward out of the Bolts' lineup. It was later revealed that it was a lower-body injury that kept Drouin out and the outlook for this injury isn't great, as he is now doubtful for Saturday night's game against the Bruins, but the team couldn't offer too much more than that.
As mentioned in this morning's notes, Thomas Greiss will be getting the start for the Islanders, where he'll be taking on Eddie Lack and the Carolina Hurricanes, setting up a big goalie survivor pool match-up between Eric and Jeremy. Winner moves on, while the loser stresses for a little while longer.
The Edmonton Oilers have recalled centre Leon Draisaitl, ahead of Thursday night's clash against the Montreal Canadiens, placing Jordan Eberle on the Long Term Injured Reserve to help accommodate the move. Draisaitl was thought to be close to making the Oilers out of training camp this year, but depth became an issue for the German and he was sent down to the AHL to get some certain playing time. He will likely be dressing for the game against Montreal tonight, making his 2016 season debut.
Believed to be one of those European diamonds in the rough rookies this season, Sergei Plotnikov still hasn't quite found his stride yet with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but to be fair, neither has the whole Penguins team. The 25-year old Russian was going to be a mature rookie scorer, lined up alongside one of the big centres in the top six and score like the dickens. Well, that hasn't quite happened yet and on Wednesday night, he was a healthy scratch for the game against the Washington Capitals. Nevertheless, it's still early on in the season and fortunes can change just as quickly.
Early notes from Thursday morning practice in Brooklyn, as Jarolslav Halak will get the night off, due to feeling under the weather today. Halak did not practice this morning, which will leave Thomas Greiss to start the game and J-F Berube will be the back-up against the Hurricanes. Of course, this should be a day-to-day issue and we'll probably see Halak back in the starters net before too long.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! What are we playing for? Well, that's easy... it's cash, silly!
The Anaheim Ducks are expected to be without forward Ryan Getzlaf for at least a few days, upwards of a couple weeks, as the 30-year old captain is undergoing an appendectomy on Wednesday. The initial prognosis is between 4-to-12 days on the shelf and for how poorly the Ducks have been playing to start the season, the former is much better than the latter.
The Arizona Coyotes are off to a much-hotter start than anyone expected, but they are starting to run through a period of injuries and included in that mess is forward Martin Hanzal, who was forced to miss Tuesday night's game against the Boston Bruins with a lower-body injury. He's currently listed as out day-to-day and his status for Friday's game, home to Vancouver, is likely still in the air.
The growing pains of being a rookie defenseman in NHL... Noah Hanifin was a healthy scratch for the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night, unable to dress against the Detroit Red Wings. In eight games this season, Hanifin has 2 assists and 4 PIM, which doesn't appear to be all that bad, considering how questionable the Hurricanes were looking on paper to start the season.. Still, it wasn't enough to keep pushing in the lineup, but I don't imagine that he'll be in the press box for too much longer.
A lower-body injury, possibly a muscle strain of some kind, appears to have gotten the best of Jaromir Jagr on Tuesday night, as he left the game between the Panthers and Avalanche in the 1st period with the ailment. Jagr was unable to return to the game and he will likely be re-evaluated Wednesday and hopefully, there will be an update on what we should expect for a timetable.
Finally, the Vancouver Canucks were able to snap the Montreal Canadiens' winning streak and they did so without defenseman Dan Hamhuis in their lineup, as he was given the day off as a maintenance day. It's somewhere between an injury and a healthy scratch, likely just to rest the bumps and bruises he's already accumulated in the early part of the season. He's day-to-day and I would imagine that he should be ready to go for the team's next game, Thursday night in Dallas, unless there is some kind of revelation about his injury status.
It hasn't been a great Monday for player notes, a number of longer-term injuries reported on and this one just gets added to the pile, heading into Week Four.
On Saturday night, Evander Kane was the unlucky recipient of an unintentional knee-on-knee collision against the boards, close to the end of the game between the Sabres and Devils. Kane had to be helped off the ice and was looked at over the remainder of the weekend. On Monday morning, the team announced that the 24-year old scoring winger will now miss the next 4-to-6 weeks with a MCL injury and was fortunate to avoid having to undergo any surgery for the injury.
Kicking off the week without a tie is a great way to get going. Evgeny Kuznetsov established himself as a proper offensive threat in Week Three, finishing the week with 9 points, clearly taking the honours for Player of the Week. He certainly had the hype, as he joined the NHL, but it took him a little over a season to finally get acclimatized to the league and now his talents are pushing through.
Sure enough, once you get a huge bargain pick like Kuznetsov and you were fortunate enough to surround it with some pretty good talent in the same week, you're going to get the Mover & Shaker nod in the week as well, so Brian walks away with two headline spots in Week Three.
The Mover & Shaker from down under finished the week with 33 points, which shimmied him up the standings, where he started the week in 18th place and finished the week in 4th place. Sure, we're still operating in some pretty close quarters in the early part of the season, but to move 14 spots in the standings is still pretty impressive.
On paper, when you looked at John R.'s team to start the year, you may have only questioned his second goalie decision, but otherwise, it was looking like a pretty decent team. Unfortunately, with some of the scoring woes of some of the top teams, his side hasn't quite panned out early on, like you would have assumed it would and that all rounded itself out in Week Three, where he couldn't find points to save his life.
Okay, I thought by now, I would have had the prizes worked out, but I haven't been able to locate any more fun prizes over the last couple weeks, so it might just be a cash season. That decision will hopefully come down this week.
One prize we know of already is the rookie pool and Ryan's team, the post-draft favourite, continues to mosey along with a couple of the best rookies on his side this season. Connor McDavid had a 4-point week to help lead his team in the week and he picked up another point from Artemi Panarin, bringing his season total up to 18 points. Ryan's situation gets a little bit better, as the Flames goaltending now has his fourth rookie on his team, now to see if he's getting any points.
And then there were 13.
Meanwhile, in the PIM pool, Eric's goon team still leads the way in the race, despite only picking up 8 minutes in penalties through his team. His 68 PIM are still 6 minutes better than the preseason favourite, Wes, who is still well in the race.
It's almost hard to believe that the Columbus Blue Jackets registered their first win without forward Ryan Johansen, but that was exactly the case. Johansen was sent home back to Columbus from the team's road trip, due to an illness and he was unavailable for the game. As of Monday morning, there still wasn't a great deal of detail on the illness that Johansen is suffering from, but his agent suggested that it isn't thought to be too serious, but it is fatiguing his client and hasn't had enough energy to play.
Scary moment for the Philadelphia Flyers over the weekend, as forward Michael Raffl ran into Rangers forward Jarret Stoll, getting caught right on the button with an unintentional elbow. Raffl's scarier moment came ont he bench, when he seemingly lost consciousness and thus ended his night. Reports on Monday suggest that Raffl has passed all of the concussion testing and he isn't expected to miss any time.