Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 3)

Buffalo Sabres defenseman Nathan Beaulieu left Saturday night's game against the Penguins with an undisclosed injury and didn't return.  There was no immediate update to his condition after the game and there still hasn't been much of an update on Sunday morning, as of yet.  The Sabres are in Colorado on Tuesday, so they might take their time with this one.

Doesn't matter too much, as Scott B. has dropped him for the coming week, as he was his second drop in this week's Waiver Draft.  Scott made the upgrade to Vegas' Colin Miller instead, hoping for a few more points to help him out of the pool basement.

The Columbus Blue Jackets announced, just prior to their game against the Washington Capitals, that they would be without defenseman Markus Nutivaara, due to an upper-body ailment.  They say that he's currently day-to-day, but that was really about it.  No cause of the injury and no timetable either.

Cam's luck just continues to be piss poor, as both of his Waiver Draft picks have now been injured, shortly thereafter being picked by him.  This is almost curse-like, if you ask me.  Both Jake DeBrusk and Nutivaara are eligible to be dropped by Cam in the bonus round, once it formally begins today.

New Jersey Devils young forward Pavel Zacha has been underachieving a little bit this season, with only 2 goals and 6 points in 21 games, and that had forced the hand of the coaching staff to send him up to the press box for last night's game against the Arizona Coyotes.  The healthy scratch didn't help their offense any, as they still dropped a 5-0 decision to the dogs, so you'd figure that Zacha would be back in the lineup for their next game.

Being back in for the next game doesn't really matter much to Dale C., as he has already parted ways with Zacha, swapping him out in the 2nd round of the Waiver Draft for Erik Haula in Vegas.  Without any scoring consistency from the kid, Dale had to make the move to help his team stay in the money conversation.

It's the same story in San Jose, but this time, with a little bit more of a veteran player in Mikkel Boedker.  His production has also been very underwhelming, for the second straight year in San Jose, having only 3 goals and 7 points in 24 games this season.  Boedker was made into a healthy scratch as well on Saturday night, as they visited the Lightning in Tampa Bay, but the Sharks were not able to find their bite there either, losing 5-2.

Lo and behold, this was another Waiver Draft drop this week and he was also replaced by a Vegas Golden Knights player.  How bizarre!  Stacey C. dropped the Dane for Reilly Smith in the 1st round, so his status moving forward is pretty well moot.

Maple Leafs forward Tyler Bozak was held out of the final game of their Western Canada road swing in Vancouver, due to being under the weather for the last couple of days. He was unable to skate in Vancouver and then didn't dress for the game, but is only considered day-to-day right now and should be considered probable for their return home to face the Calgary Flames again on Wednesday.

This was just unfortunate timing for Derek B., who enters Sunday's limited action tied for 23rd in weekly scoring in Week Nine with 13 points, only 2 points ahead of the current Basement Dweller leader, Wes, and doesn't have any games to defend himself with today.  Wes, on the other hand, has two games.