Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 30)

The injury bug has really hit the Flames hard, as they are now expecting to be without both forward Matthew Tkachuk and defenseman T.J. Brodie for the remainder of the regular season and then Travis Hamonic threw his name into the mix as well, suffering an upper-body injury against the Blue Jackets in a 5-1 loss on Thursday night.  Hamonic was hurt in the 1st period and after the game, the Flames coaching staff suggested that he would be out for a while too, which could mean the last week of the regular season as well.  If anything, the Flames will get to feature more of their youth for the last few games of the season.

So, the new loss means some lost man games down the stretch for Grant's team, which sits in 9th place, but still 17 points up on 10th place.  It seems unlikely that his team will fall down anymore in the last week, as it does still have some quality left playing.  For Chris and Ryan, they have now seen Tkachuk and Brodie's games scratched from their projected numbers.

It was a bit of a goaltender shit show for the Blackhawks last night, when they played host to the Winnipeg Jets. The top-billed goalie on the team, and pool taken, Anton Forsberg, suffered an injury in the pregame warm-up, which forced him from making the start against the division rivals, leaving Collin Delia to make his NHL debut for the team. Unfortunately, Delia was hurt too, which brought it down to emergency backup, Scott Foster, to take to the net.  The Blackhawks were remarkably able to pull out a 6-2 win and Foster stopped all seven shots he faced in the 3rd period.  There was no update on Forsberg after the game, but the team recalled J-F Berube to likely take his spot.

Derek B.'s team still likely has its eyes set on 10th place in the standings and it's not impossible right now.  His team only sits 9 points out after Thursday night, but losing a goalie is going to hurt.  Every other team seems to be suffering injuries too, so there is that to hang your hat on.

Depends on who you're reading, it sounds like Jake Muzzin could be out for a little while or he could be back as early as next week.  Muzzin suffered an upper-body injury against the Flames on Monday and missed out on last night's game against the Coyotes, which is only one of possibly two games he could miss, before returning.  The Kings are not entirely safe in the playoff race just yet, so they could really use Muzzin's 42 points in 74 games, in terms of his production.

I don't think Stuart is really bothered at this point in time.  He's too far ahead in 1st for us to even really care.

After such a rocket of a start to the season, New Jersey Devils rookie forward Jesper Bratt has really cooled off and the number of healthy scratches down the stretch is a very good indicator of that.  Bratt was a healthy scratch again on Thursday night against the Penguins, but it didn't really seem to spur on the team to victory, although they did register a point in the loss, losing in overtime, 4-3. 

Ryan's team has seen those numbers dry up the most, having only collected 18 points in his last 46 games of the season.  Ryan's team was hoping for a real offensive push to stay competitive in the pool, but it didn't come.  Ryan's team sits in 23rd, in danger of dropping to 24th today.