Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 16)

A couple more injury notes from Thursday night, first, Antoine Vermette left Arizona's game against Minnesota with a lower-body injury, details still forthcoming.  Vermette left the game after his first shift in the 2nd period of play, as he only logged a total of six minutes of ice-time in the game.  We should expect a better word on his injury on Friday and if it is anything greater than a day-to-day injury, we'll post it... otherwise, he's day-to-day.

So far this season, Vermette has been held pointless, but that has been a small blip on the radar for Neil, who finished the night atop of the standings, carrying a 3-point lead over Ryan.  Even though Neil hasn't needed any points from Vermette to get there, you don't want to be without bodies on the ice.

The Tampa Bay Lightning haven't been terribly lucky on the injury side this season, as they've been reeling from a few knocks on their roster.  With Alex Killorn being scratched before the game, the team was down a forward and then they lost their top defenseman, Victor Hedman, as he suffered an undisclosed injury in the 2nd period against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.  It's still too early to say what the injury is or too early for an update from the team, but they will go again on Saturday, at home to the Sabres, so we should know more by then.

This is not good news for Kristy & Don, who banked heavily on Hedman, taking him in the 3rd round, among the gold rush for top end defenders early on in the draft.  They have managed to pull 4 assists out of the first five games of the season, so they won't want that production to go away, if they are to move up from 10th place in the standings and defend their championship.

Click here for the updated injury/news page on the website