Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 13)

Good news for the Ottawa Senators, as Andrew Hammond has been cleared and says he is ready to get going on his 2016 campaign.  Hammond injured his groin in the preseason and hasn't been able to dress yet this year, but the team has announced that he will be joining them on their quick 2-game road trip, which starts tomorrow in Columbus and finishes up, Thursday in Pittsburgh.  Hammond and Craig Anderson are expected to split those starts, but we're unsure of which game each of them will take.

This is good news for Wes, who has been without a goalie for the first week of the season, it will at least give him one shot, once and a while, to get a start in his net.  With any luck, Hammond will get hot once again and the team will ride him for a while, but Anderson has played well, which has been good for John P. early on.

In other goalie news, it sounds like Cory Schneider saw his family grow over night, welcoming a new child at 3am this morning, so he won't be available for the New Jersey Devils tonight, when they take on the Nashville Predators, something that will likely be touched on in this afternoon's post as well.

This should only cost him this game, as the players usually like to come back as soon as possible and play well to celebrate their newborns.  That means Friday night against the Sharks will be his next game, just in case Troy wanted to see how well that game goes.

A small scare for the Winnipeg Jets yesterday afternoon, as they lost the services of Dustin Byfuglien late in the game against the New York Islanders, dealing with a leg injury.  The Jets are playing back to back games in New York, lining up against the Rangers tonight and it sounds like he'll be good to go tonight, as they shut him down as a precaution, with only a couple minutes to go.  The early reports on Tuesday morning are saying that he was on the ice for the morning skate, which is good news, so we'll see if he's fine to play.

Our current PIM pool leader, Eric, could really use Byfuglien in the lineup today, as this could be a rough and tumble game against the blueshirts.  There should be lots of opportunities to grind out a few minutes for his cause and maybe some power play time to help the 5th place team in the overall standings.

According to the morning skate for the Dallas Stars, reports have surfaced that it appears that Valeri Nichushkin will be a healthy scratch tonight, as the Stars take on the Edmonton Oilers at home.  The young Russian has yet to register a point in the first two games of the year, which hasn't helped his cause and he'll go up to the press box to do a little homework, before he draws back into the lineup.

Scott's team has only picked up 1 goal in the first few days of the regular season and his team currently resides in 20th place, now 12 points out of 1st place.  His team really needs a spark to get going and maybe this scratch will be the kick in the pants that one of his players needed to get going.

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