Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 2)

How typical.  Once a player finally jumps into the hockey pool, as an up-and-coming player in the league, he goes cold.  That would be the case for Boston's Danton Heinen, who hasn't done all that much in the last few weeks, picking up 4 points in his last 11 games, which apparently has been enough to make him into a healthy scratch on Thursday night.  The Bruins won a barn burner against the Penguins without him, which has to be an even bigger disappointment, but those are the breaks.

Stacey C. was definitely hoping that Heinen would help lift his pool team up into some more favourable rankings in the standings, but since the Week Eighteen swap, that has been far from the case.  Although, since the activation of all the players, Stacey's team has moved up one spot to 22nd.

On Thursday afternoon, the Chicago Blackhawks announced that defenseman Jan Rutta would be out for that night's game against the San Jose Sharks, due to a lower-body injury and that he would be listed as out day-to-day.  There hasn't been much more in the way of details, since the announcement, so we have to take it for what it's worth.

Rutta has been somewhat of a disappointment for Grant's team, after picking him up in the 1st round of the Week Nine Waiver Draft, as the Czech defender has only played in 16 games since being activated, but picked up 7 points in those games.  Grant's team is in a battle for 4th place in the standings and could really use all hands on deck.

Finally, the Columbus Blue Jackets announced that forward Josh Anderson suffered a knee sprain on Monday night and the team now expects him to miss the next four weeks of the season, allowing him to shake off whatever rust he accumulates ahead of the playoffs.  Anderson has been decent this season and the Jackets have acquired some more talent to bridge the gap towards the playoffs, so we'll see how they pull this out.

Clayton's pool team is the team that Grant's side is competing with for 4th place and it has now lost a forward, where Grant's team has lost a defenseman, likely for a shorter period.  The chase is certainly made more difficult for the first spot outside of the money.