Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 25)

The official word from the Dallas Stars is that Dan Hamhuis is suffering from a lower-body injury and that's why he was unable to go against the San Jose Sharks on Friday night.  It is believed that Hamhuis may not be exactly suffering from that kind of injury, rather it could be something related to his fight against Chicago's Ryan Hartman on Thursday night.  For now, Hamhuis will be considered to be day-to-day.

For John S.'s team, falling short in the goalie survivor pool was as good as it was going to get for him this year.  His team has dropped down to 19th, 73 points out of the money and is 200 minutes back of 1st place in the PIM pool.

The return of Jaroslav Halak means that the New York Islanders are running the 3-goalie system again, mostly because they can and they don't want to lose any goalies to the waiver process.  Thomas Greiss was a healthy scratch on Friday night, as Halak got the start and J-F Berube was his back-up for the game against the Penguins.  It could be a lot more of this in the last couple weeks of the season, as the Islanders will more likely take the stress of dressing as the back-up away from the regular starters in this rotation.

The Islanders will play host to the Bruins tonight, on back-to-back nights, so Greiss might be in for a start for his team and for Dale B.'s, which is currently 7 points out of 1st place and having trouble maintaining a smaller gap with Brian's team.  A start and a win tonight would be huge for both teams.

A lower-body injury was also the case for Winnipeg defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, missing out on the late game against the Ducks on Friday night.  Byfuglien was reportedly hurt against Los Angeles on Thursday night and wasn't able to take the morning skate on Friday, nor was he able to dress.  There was no immediate timetable for any return, the Jets will just have to push on without him for the time being.  The Jets are back home on Sunday to take n the Canucks, so we'll see if he is good to go by then.

Eric's team managed to keep pace on Friday night, staying within 2 points of the money spots, but saw no improvement to his standing in the PIM pool.  If Byfuglien misses any sort of significant time, that could be a huge blow to both races.