Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 20)

The Edmonton Oilers have opted to make Jesse Puljujarvi into a healthy scratch again on Monday night, instead of having him in the lineup to take on the St. Louis Blues. With all the scratches of late, it seems strange that the Oilers would take full advantage of the World Juniors and send the 18-year old to the tournament for some more ice-time. Anyways, Puljujarvi will continue to bounce up and down in the lineup and we'll all question their methods.

Sending the 4th overall pick in this past June's Entry Draft wouldn't help Mike much in the hockey pool, but these scratches are effectively doing the same and if he was scratched for the next two weeks, it would indeed be the same, if not worse, to his hockey pool team.

News broke from the New York Post on Monday night that Rangers forward Rick Nash has suffered another groin injury and he will be sidelined again for an undetermined amount of time.  Nash has already missed a handful of games this year with a similar ailment and it sounds like there are more games to be missed.  In 30 games this season, Nash is up to 13 goals and 20 points and he'll leave a pretty big hole in team's offense with this next absence.

Marcin's team has lost some early ground in the first night of the week, dropping down to 13th spot and further injury news has to be disheartening.  His team is already on the lower end of projected games this week and this is still with Nash's total still in there.  It could be a tough week for Marcin's squad.

Andrew Hammond's ill-fated start on Sunday didn't last very long, before he suffered an ankle injury, almost 17 minutes, to be more precise.  Hammond had to give way to Mike Condon in the 6-2 win, the 2 points collected by the goaltending relief.  The injury doesn't sound like anything is very positive and the Senators have called up Matt O'Connor to back-up Condon tonight, when the Senators take on the Blackhawks.  Hammond will be listed as day-to-day, until otherwise notified.

Clayton's team is tied for 24th in wins in the hockey pool this season and 25th in total minutes played by his goalies this season, yet he wasn't able to pick up one in the Waiver Draft.  The rest of his team isn't exactly making up for it either, as his team sits in 19th place, heading into Tuesday night.

It is also important to note that last night's game between the Red Wings and the Hurricanes was postponed, due to a technical problem at the PNC Arena in Raleigh.  The building apparently couldn't cool the building enough to keep the ice in playable shape and they ended up calling it at night, when the delay passed the acceptable point, since the Red Wings had to travel to Tampa Bay to play the Lightning tonight.  The make-up date hasn't been announced yet, but it will be added to the schedule soon.