Afternoon Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 21)

An undisclosed injury has Detroit defenseman Mike Green on the shelf, as he was slated to miss the postponed game in Carolina on Monday and did miss the game in Tampa on Tuesday and it doesn't sound probable for him to make it into the lineup for their next game on Friday, against the Panthers.  There's no explicit word on what the injury is, just that he won't be playing any time soon.

With 18 points in 32 games this season, that takes a good chunk of offense out of Stacey C.'s blueline, which currently ranks 7th in the pool, to date.  Stacey's team is currently 7th overall and only 9 points out of the money to start action today.  If this is a long-term injury, that could be worthy of a drop in the standings.

It sounds like St. Louis defenseman Alex Pietrangelo was feeling a bit under the weather on Tuesday night and that's what kept him out of the game against Dallas. He is expected to be back in the lineup for Thursday night's contest in Tampa Bay, so his day-to-day status appears to be fully justified.

Benson doesn't appear to be missing much any more action from the stalwart defender and it's a good thing too.  His 17 points in 33 games is a decent scoring rate for a defenseman in the pool, although expectations may have been a touch higher, but being as though he has the 1st place team, it's okay for now.

The Winnipeg Jets were not in need of any toughness, in theory, against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night, so they opted to scratch forward Chris Thorburn, who has been used as a policeman in the lineup for the better part of this season.  Thorburn currently ranks 2nd in the NHL in PIM with 65, but doesn't have a lot of offensive upside, 3 goals in 29 games.  In a weird wrinkle in the schedule, the Jets play in Vancouver again on Thursday and they may want him back in, after taking a 4-1 loss on Tuesday night.

Of course, Troy would like him back in, as he tries to ascend the standings of the PIM pool mini-game.  His team was about 100 minutes back before the Waiver Draft players were activated, including Thorburn, and his team has since taken that gap down to 92 minutes, but it's not a sprint, it's a solid marathon.