Draft Player Scratches (Jan 16)

Before the 8-minute mark of the 1st period between the Thrashers and Stars, Atlanta goalie Chris Mason was taken out by a sliding body, which forced the veteran keeper out of the game with a lower-body injury. The initial thought is that Mason has suffered a knee injury, but there is not going to be much for confirmation right away. The Thrashers play again on Monday night in Sunrise, so there will likely be an update before that game, with a likely call-up, if he will be out of action.

Mason belongs to the last place team in the draft, Derek W.'s, which ranks 19th in the pool in goalie points with only 24 to his name this season. The loss of Mason does have some potential to drop him a little bit further in this column, so I would imagine a change would be coming in a few weeks with the next waiver draft.

News dropped while writing this post that the Panthers are now expected to be without Bryan McCabe for an indefinite period of time, after he suffered a broken jaw in last night's game against the Devils. McCabe apparently took a deflected shot up into the face, obviously cracking his jaw.  Likely when there is an actual timeframe update for his return, I'll do a post up for that.

This news just keeps getting better for Derek W., who already lost a goalie in this post this morning.  Derek's defense is what has been keeping him in the conversation with the 18th and 19th place teams, not falling too far behind, so the loss of McCabe, his second-best defenseman, will hurt a lot.

The Kings lost the services of Wayne Simmonds in the 1st period of their late game against the Oilers, having suffered a lower-body injury in the process. There was no real update after the game, as to the severity of the injury and that will likely come before Monday's game in Dallas. For now, we will consider him out day-to-day, possibly missing the team's next contest, but if there is anything more to it, an update should be posted.

Simmonds is a member of Leon G.'s draft team this season, which currently sits in 8th spot, 27 points out of the money spots at the moment. Simmonds has arguably underachieved with the Kings this season, with only 17 points in 43 games and even a few more points would have Leon in 6th spot going into Sunday, but being as the second body that Leon has lost this week, this might not be a good sign.

In somewhat of a strange story, Ed Jovanovski was caught up high on a lateral hit by the Maple Leafs' Mike Brown on Friday night, to which the Leafs enforcer did receive a suspension, but Jovanovski ended up suffering a lower-body injury in the process, which kept him out of the Coyotes' Saturday night tilt against the Ducks. He is considered out day-to-day and that is about all I have seen or heard thus far.

Jovanovski belongs to the 12th place team of Neil B.'s, which has been on a bit of a freefall since Week Ten, dropping from 6th place then to his position now, in the bottom half of the standings.  Neil's defense has been above-average this season, tied for 7th in the pool with 85 points and the loss of Jovanovski will hurt his shot at climbing up any further, depending on the severity of the injury.

Finally, a lower-body injury kept Ryane Clowe out of the Sharks' line-up on Saturday night, as they took on the Oilers.  The injury is being kept under wraps by the Sharks brass at the moment, so it is hard to say whether or not he'll be back for the team's next game, which goes Monday in Phoenix, but we'll have to play wait-and-see for now.  Consider him day-to-day at this point.

After climbing back into 18th place this week, Clayton C.'s team doesn't sit on stable ground with another injury to add to the mix.  Clowe's absence likely hurt his chances of trying to close the gap to 17th spot and increased the chances of dropping back down to 19th spot.  The length of this injury will be a sign of things to come, I'm sure.

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