Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 8)

We were destined to allude to this point, that there was going to be one of the three Calgary Flames goaltenders acting as a healthy scratch on Wednesday night and drawing the short straw for opening night against the Canucks was Joni Ortio.  Karri Ramo got the start for Calgary, was shelled for five goals, while Jonas Hiller was on the bench, keeping a close eye on the game from the bench.  The Flames and Canucks go again on Saturday night, but we have yet to see a goalie announcement there yet.

Ryan snapped up Ortio in the 11th round, eliminating all the Flames goalies from availability, well before the last round of the draft and there have been no immediate benefits yet.  His other goalie, Pekka Rinne, has a good chance of keeping him in the goalie survivor pool still though.

The Chicago Blackhawks had a banner pregame ceremony, but you couldn't quite say the same about the product on the ice, once the puck had dropped.  I don't think you could attribute the loss to the scratching of European Summer signing, Viktor Tikhonov, being up in the press box as a healthy scratch, but he might.  The Blackhawks nearly had themselves an open camp, as they had a lot of roster spots to fill, for cheap, and Tikhonov did fill that need, along with Kyle Baun, Ryan Garbutt and Artemi Panarin.

If he was looking for the next Jori Lehtera in the Central Division, Grant is not off to the greatest start trying to find him, as he found the odd-man out in Chicago.  It's still early.  It's still early!

For the Vancouver Canucks, they found themselves with a little bit more depth on the blueline to start the regular season, which bumped Yannick Weber down to the extra defender on the roster, as he made his way up to the press box for opening night in Calgary.  Weber was a regular on the point for the Canucks last season, but it looks like a couple new faces have bumped him off the top six, early on, anyways.  It's a long season.

John P. used his 12th round pick to acquire Weber in this year's draft, making him the 3rd defenseman on his team.  At least that can't be taken away from him until the Week Nine Waiver Draft, at the earliest.

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