Draft Player News (Mar 17)

On Tuesday night, the Boston Bruins decided to make Michael Ryder into a healthy scratch, likely to send a message to the forward that his play has not been up to an acceptable level in recent games.  The Bruins forward should be figuring back into the line-up sooner rather than later.

Since Ryder hasn't played well enough to stay in the line-up, this scratch might be of service to Don D..  Ryder would have to get his act together and start scoring a little bit more, but that's what everyone wants in this transaction.  Don is 25 points out of the money and running out of time quickly.  He'll need some real magic down the stretch now.

Some more injury updates from Edmonton came down the pipe over the past couple days.  Ales Hemsky has now been shut down for the remainder of the regular season, he has elected to undergo shoulder surgery and his time line for being on the shelf is quite long.  Shawn Horcoff is currently dealing with a foot injury, but he figures he'll be back and ready to go at some point next week.  This should aid Edmonton's bid for a great draft pick in the Summer.

I believe this was pointed out in a previous post including these two players for the Oilers.  Hemsky is now completely lost to Chris M. in 3rd place, which means Horcoff's return might help Benson G., who trails Chris by only 17 points.  I don't think Horcoff can score 17 points in a small stretch, but he could help.

The return of Rostislav Klesla to the Phoenix Coyotes line-up on Tuesday night, meant that Oliver Ekman-Larsson was the odd-man out for the game against the Flames.  Ekman-Larsson continues to struggle to find a natural place in the Coyotes' line-up, which has made for a less-than-stellar rookie campaign for the top prospect.  He'll figure back in eventually down the stretch, but with games meaning so much more at the moment, he might have troubles getting back in regularly.

No real shock here, as Ekman-Larsson has been a constant healthy scratch.  If Clayton C. didn't have such problems with his goaltending and forwards, he might have swapped out this defenseman for someone who plays with a bit more regularity.

Dany Heatley of the Sharks was handed a 2-game suspension by the NHL on Wednesday for an elbow he delivered to the head of the Stars' Steve Ott in their game on Tuesday night.  Heatley will miss Thursday night's game at home to the Wild and Saturday at home to the Blues, making him eligible to return on Wednesday at home to the Flames.

Jani K. has been having a bit of a bounce-back week in the pool, but will take a bit of a hit with Heatley sitting out for the rest of the week due to suspension.  Jani has dropped down to 16th place in recent weeks and will likely need his big sniper back before too long.

On Wednesday night, the Capitals had scratched forward Eric Fehr for their game against the Red Wings.  Fehr had just returned from injury, but by the sounds of things, another (or possibly a recurrence of an) upper-body injury was enough to keep him out of the line-up.  We'll have to consider him day-to-day for right now, as the details have not been released just yet.

Just when Leon G. thought he had a completely healthy team, with the return of Fehr, he drops back onto the injury list with this upper-body injury.  Leon is in a good fight for a top 10 position at the moment, battling with four teams for only a couple of spots in the top 10.

Link to the Injury/News Page