Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 16)

After dropping two games to the Oilers this week, Saturday night saw some more changes for the Flames, ahead of their game against the Canucks. Defenseman Dennis Wideman was taken out of the lineup, making way for rookie defender Brett Kulak, but the result only marginally improved, dropping the game in the shootout, 2-1.  Wideman has a goal in his first two games this season, but that wasn't enough to keep him in the lineup for one, but the Flames have more decisions to make in Week Two and Wideman will be one of them.

Grant has one of the three teams, pretty well tied for 2nd place with 20 points, 3 points back of Cam to start Sunday.  It's hard to say whether or not Wideman would have made a difference on Saturday, but missing out on games is tough.

The New York Islanders have started the season with three goalies on their active roster, which can allow them to give their number one goalie a true day off, not even having him dress for games that he isn't starting.  Jaroslav Halak is that guy and he got the day off, making way for Thomas Greiss to get the start and J-F Berube to get dressed and play as back-up.  The Islanders were playing the first game of back-to-back nights, as they will play host to the Ducks on Sunday evening, which we'll expect Halak to return in.

I don't think we can count this as a missed start for Halak, since he likely wasn't going to get this one anyways.  So, for Troy, he is certainly learning what his team is going to be like moving forward.  It is likely that he'll get that start today, so he will get an opportunity to move out of the Basement Dweller spot for the week.

Through two games already this season, defenseman Derrick Pouliot has yet to dress in one for the Pittsburgh Penguins, now ranking as the 7th defender on the team, behind Brian Dumoulin.  The Pens have opened up the season with a couple of wins, so there likely isn't any need to start changing anything up, unless those pesky injuries were to start popping up.

More bad news for Troy, putting some perspective on why his team is down at the bottom of the standings today.  There is still lots of time to start turning the ship around, especially since his team is playing games besides Pouliot.  Troy's team has registered 22 skater games, so far this week, 7 games better than last in the category and 4 games back of the leader.