Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Jan 5)

The Anaheim Ducks were without forward Ryan Getzlaf on Wednesday night, as he has been dealing with a minor lower-body injury, but it was enough to keep him from dressing for a game.  He is currently listed as day-to-day and his availability for Friday night's game against the Coyotes is still up in the air.

Marcin's team has started to rebound after the huge crash that saw his team drop from 3rd to 16th, as it has climbed its way back up to 11th in the last couple weeks.  Getzlaf will be a big part of Marcin's rebound and his return will be required sooner than later.

One missed note over the holidays, mostly because I didn't think he was in the pool, but Troy Brouwer is working his way back from a broken finger, much like teammate Johnny Gaudreau had to earlier this season.  Brouwer suffered the injury on Boxing Day and has already missed a few games.  Already a couple weeks on, he's likely to miss another couple of weeks on top of that as well.

The Flames also scratched Jyrki Jokipakka on Wednesday against the Avalanche, but this isn't quite big news, as the Finn has been a healthy scratch on numerous occasions.  With the Flames win, he might not draw in until after another loss, but we'll see.

The loss of Brouwer was a bit of a hit to Mike's team, since he had 17 points in 36 games this season, it was a semi-reasonable point production rate.  Jokipakka, on the other hand, belongs to Scott, and his team is in the money with a guy that has been lacking, with only 5 points in 27 games.  Doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

The injury list for the Montreal Canadiens is growing game-by-game.  On Wednesday night, they added forwards Paul Byron and Brendan Gallagher, both to upper-body injuries.  Both left the game, not to return, but Gallagher had to return home to Montreal to check on his hand after getting in the way of a Shea Weber slapshot.  We'll have to wait and see what the Habs have to say on the status of their players, before Saturday's game in Toronto.

Scott picked up Byron and Troy has had Gallagher since the draft, both are anxiously awaiting what the word is on their players.