Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 27)

Things don't appear to be getting much better for Shea Weber, who was shut down by the Montreal Canadiens, a week before the Christmas break started and still doesn't appear to be ready to go, since he wasn't on the trip down to Carolina, where the Habs will restart their schedule with a road trip that includes Tampa and Sunrise as well.  He has been listed as out indefinitely and that continues to be the case.

For Neil, his team is somewhat littered with injuries and scratches, but Weber remains the big one, as the others are only day-to-day.  His team opens up tonight in 20th place, 62 points out of the money, which is a long way to go, albeit, with still half the season to go.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that they will be without defenseman Kristopher Letang for tonight's game, at home to Columbus, due to a lower-body injury and that he is considered day-to-day with this new ailment.  Letang wasn't out for the morning skate today and the coaching staff updated his status in their post-skate briefing, but that was all that we got, in terms of details.

For Stacey C., this will be a disappointment, for sure, but it is one that has to be measured, since Letang is a long-time member of the Injury Prone List.  Nevertheless, his team opens from the break without him, in 19th place, only 10 points ahead of Neil's team in the standings.

The Boston Bruins won't be with forward David Krejci tonight, with Ottawa in town, but he is expected to be on the trip to Washington after the game and his status will be decided upon then. He is currently on the IR with the Bruins, dating back to the 16th, so he's eligible to come off at any time and it does sound like he's much closer to day-to-day than anything. Once we see a demotion to the AHL, we can probably safely assume he'll be in the lineup that night.

Dale B. opens the schedule with a 6-point lead atop the standings and the possibility of getting a body back is huge news for his side.  Krejci has 14 points in 18 games this season and any activity is good activity in this case.

Also close to making his return, goaltender Devan Dubnyk for the Minnesota Wild, as he was back in practice this morning. Dubnyk was practicing in the net usually assigned for starters this morning, but there was no official word about whether or not he'll start tonight against the Dallas Stars, but since it is a lower-body injury that the team and player are having to deal with, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just getting the reps for feel and we'd still see Alex Stalock in net tonight, possibly seeing Dubnyk back for Friday night against Nashville.

This is still pretty good news for Brenda & Seward today, as they have been without their top pick for two weeks now.  Their team still has a slight chance of making the move as we near the halfway point in the season.  Their team has seen some improvement in the second segment of the year, ranking 12th in scoring since the start of Week Ten.