Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 18)

The Chicago Blackhawks lost the services of forward Artem Anisimov on Saturday night, when he left the game in the 1st period against the Blues with an upper-body injury. The coaching staff updated his condition by saying that he was day-to-day and it would be most likely that he will miss tonight's game, at home to San Jose. I would imagine there will be some more tests done and possibly a better diagnosis coming, but we'll have to wait and see.

Marcin's team hasn't quite recovered from that free fall of last week, as his team still sits in 12th place in the standings, 17 points from 3rd place, the spot he was holding for quite a while.  These injuries that his team is suffering are really adding up.

The same goes for Andrei Markov, who left Montreal's game against the Capitals on Saturday night, but his injury was to the lower-body instead.  Markov's status is still up in the air and likely awaiting some more testing, but the Habs don't play again until Tuesday night, so there is some extra time in there to help him get healthy again.

Derek B.'s team is among a handful all in line for the Basement Dweller, heading into Sunday's action, but the loss of Markov last night won't affect his final position for the week, although it probably would have been nice for him to finish last night's game for the possibility of more points.  Derek's team is 2 points clear and with five games his team could possibly play.

It was a late scratch for Nashville's P.K. Subban on Saturday, as he didn't dress for their game against the New York Rangers, thanks to an upper-body injury.  There has been no official update from the team on the nature of the injury, but he didn't skate on Saturday morning, absent from the morning skate, which led to him not dressing for the game.  Wait and see some more, I guess.

Eric's team has been gaining some steam this week, among the hottest teams in Week Ten, with 28 points through Saturday night's action.  With the hot week, his team has shot up from 19th to 13th.  The loss of Subban, however, could put a pretty tough speed bump in the way.

It's hard to say what could have led to a healthy scratch for Devils forward PA Parenteau, except for the possibility that he has displeased the coaching staff, one way or another.  In 28 games, the veteran winger has 6 goals and 11 points, which isn't by any means awful, but it could be argued that he is underachieving, especially in a time when the Devils are really struggling in the standings.  It's this kind of behaviour that would lead me to believe that he'll be on the trading block before too long and at $1.25 million as an annual cap hit, I'm sure there would be teams lining up for him.

I would think that Tony would hope for some kind of resolution, as this isn't the first time that Parenteau has been scratched this season.  Tony's team is 15 points clear of the goon squad for last place, but that can't be good enough for him.  A change for Parenteau could be a good boost to his team.

It looks like it was a straight-up healthy scratch for Rangers forward Brandon Pirri for that same game above against the Predators.  This was Pirri's first scratch, by the look of things, as his numbers have gone cold in recent weeks.  In total, Pirri has 6 goals and 12 points in 32 games, not much better than Parenteau's numbers above.  Maybe the two teams can pull a swap, especially since Pirri isn't that much more expensive at $1.9 million for the whole year.

For Stuart, Pirri was a Waiver Draft pick-up and since he was taken, he has played in six games, picking up a goal and an assist.  Stuart's team has hovered around the top 10, since the Waiver Draft, not really moving up, nor down, so it could be said that his involvement was a bit of a wash.