Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Oct 23)

Maybe the worst-kept secret in Boston is that goaltender Tuukka Rask is not 100%.  On Saturday night, the Finnish number one sat out for the Bruins, as they were visited by the Montreal Canadiens, citing general body soreness as the reason for his absence.  Rask was scratched completely from the lineup and the Bruins called up Zane McIntyre to back-up Anton Khudobin, so something is definitely not right there.  It will be interesting to see if Rask misses any more time with this soreness or whether or not the Bruins actually divulge the real issue.

This is big news for Troy, because Rask is pegged to be one of those guys that will keep his team competitive and will hopefully dig him out of this 21-point hole in 20th place.  Rask has been Troy's best player to date and can ill-afford not to have him after this start to the season.

It is also no secret that the Calgary Flames have lacked jump in their first handful of games this season, but it did seem a tad strange to see rookie forward Matthew Tkachuk among the scratches on Saturday night, with the Blues in town, because has been one of the few players that has actually had a step to his game and provided some energy at times. He hasn't been the most productive, but you can say the same for many on the team.

Derek B. has had himself a pretty good Week Two, finishing Saturday with 25 points in the week and his team has moved up to 16th in the standings, 17 points out of 1st place.  It's hard to say what kind of effect Tkachuk's scratch will do, moving forward, or does it mean there's a chance he can go back to junior yet?

It's being called a lower-body injury for Justin Abdelkader, which kept him out of Saturday's contest against the San Jose Sharks, but it wasn't like they needed him or anything.  The Red Wings only shut out the Sharks, 3-0.  Details were pretty well non-existent for the injury status of the rugged forward.  He's considered to be day-to-day for right now and that's all that could be confirmed on Sunday morning.

Another body down for Derek B., which will certainly hurt your trend line for moving up in the standings.  Nevertheless, his team still leads the pool in skater games played, with 64, and that was with missing both Tkachuk and Abdelkader's presence last night.  Staying healthy is certainly key in these long seasons.

After taking a stick to the face earlier in the week, Florida Panthers forward Jussi Jokinen was in need of some extra dental work this weekend and it had cost him Saturday night's game against the Avalanche.  The reports are suggesting that Jokinen was able to practice in the last couple of days, but wasn't quite ready for game action, he's considered day-to-day for right now and they don't play again until Tuesday night, giving him an extra day or two to help heal up.

Cam's team has been off to a great start, thanks in large part to his goaltending, but it has been a bit of a quiet week, dropping down to 6th place.  It is so tight at the top of the standings, 1 point could get him into 4th and 2 points could get him into 2nd today, assuming that the teams around him didn't get anything.

The word out of Nashville yesterday was that a bad case of food poisoning ran rampant through the Predators' dressing room and it hit a good number of players. The Predators had to make five call-ups, including an emergency goalie, and put Cody Bass on the Injured Reserve, just to make it all work for them.  Pool players Pekka Rinne and Craig Smith were among the scratches on Saturday night, both cited for the food poisoning issue.  It was hard to say whether or not Rinne would have played anyways, since they had played the night before.

Stacey M. and Marcin were the two teams affected by this small outbreak, both missing out on a 5-1 Nashville win over Pittsburgh, despite the issue at hand.  Both teams came out of the busy Saturday night, hovering in the middle of the standings, 12th & 13th, respectively.