Coyotes Grant Ekman-Larsson a Leave

The Arizona Coyotes will play the final three games of the regular season without their number one defenseman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, as he was granted a leave of absence from the team for the last week of the season.  His mother has passed away in Sweden and he has left to be with the family.

The 25-year old has now concluded his 2017 season with 79 games played, scoring 12 goals and 39 points, currently good enough for 192nd in pool scoring today, but will certainly drop a little further down in the next week or so.  His numbers were also good enough to be 21st among all defensemen.

For Stacey M., the run of defensemen early on in the draft didn't pay off for her very much, as she opted to take the Swedish rearguard in the 3rd round, 56th overall, and didn't quite get the return she was hoping for.  His numbers were 24th best in the round, only bettering Derek B.'s pick, Mark Giordano, who was taken 12 spots afterwards.

Stacey's team will open the last week of the season in 16th, 2 points back of 15th, but her team was also good enough to win the goalie survivor pool, so it wasn't a complete loss this year.