Draft Player Scratches (Oct. 28)

The Anaheim Ducks, on Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild, tried to infuse a little bit more offense in their line-up, by taking out a defenseman and the press box victim on the evening was Sheldon Brookbank.  Brookbank, thought to be more of a bruising defensive-minded player, was not the first choice for offense, so up to the box he went.

In eight games this season, Brookbank has registered a point, a single assist, which doesn't actually make him the worst pick in the draft... yet.

In what was likely one of the more bizarre picks in the hockey pool, Darren S. took the bruising defenseman and was hoping for grand things this year.  Currently, Darren is sitting in 21st place, only 5 points up on 22nd (last) place, going into Friday night's action.  Not sure more analysis needs to be done.

An awkward fall into the boards saw Sergei Kostitsyn leave the ice without being able to put pressure on one of his legs, as he went off the ice. After the game against the Lightning, the news didn't seem to sound too major, rather that he felt okay after the game and he wasn't allowed back out for precautionary measures.

In nine games this season, Kostitsyn has scored 3 goals and 5 assists, scoring at a very reasonable pace.  Currently, that has him ranked 62nd in pool scoring at this point in the season, which is still very early, but impressive nonetheless.

This could be a bit of a big hole for Niesa S.'s team to manage, as her team is still in pretty good shape, despite sitting in 13th spot going into the weekend.  Her team is only 3 points out of the top 10 and 15 points out of the top three, so there is still plenty of time to work out these gaps.  If Kostitsyn doesn't miss any time, which seems possible, she'll have a full compliment of players to do so.

The goaltending carousel is a very dizzying spot to be on Long Island and on Thursday night, Al Montoya spent his second straight game in the press box as a healthy scratch. Evgeni Nabokov has received the last two starts and with Rick DiPietro being "healthy" again, Montoya has been demoted to the press box as the third goalie.

There's no real line on how the goaltending decisions will go over the next few days, but hopefully any decisions will lead to some more concrete ideas for the next few weeks.  It's all baby steps for the Islanders goalies at the moment.

Montoya has 2 wins in 238 minutes worth of action this season, good for 4 points, which gives him about a point per 60 minutes played this year.  That's keeping him around the 250th spot mark in pool scoring and with the carousel going around and around, I don't know if this situation will get any better for him.

This, you would have to expect, is bad news for Peter H., who currently sits in 17th spot in the standings, with 61 points.  Peter currently sits 21 points out of the top three going into the weekend and without a regular goalie, it could be tough to climb out of this hole.

In the crazy scoring game between the Jets and Flyers in Philadelphia on Thursday night, every goaltender was used and one goalie was even used twice. In relief of Ondrej Pavelec, Chris Mason suffered what appeared to be a groin injury and was forced to leave in the 3rd period, giving the reins back to Pavelec for the remainder of the game.

Mason reportedly missed practice on Friday and his availability for Saturday night is definitely in question, be it in a starting role or a back-up capacity.  The final diagnosis has not been dropped yet from the team, so we'll have to wait and see.

Mason has played in 178 minutes worth of action this season and has 1 win to show for his efforts.  It has not been a stellar start for him, by any means.

In the draft, Mason was Clayton C.'s last pick in the 14th round, so there isn't a lot of value given to his every day availability, but in order to make those bigger jumps in the pool, some bargains need to be found. Mason was definitely thought to be one of those players, so any long-term time on the shelf will be detrimental to that.  Clayton currently sits in 3rd spot, only 3 points back of 2nd and 12 points back of 1st.  A second regular goalie would be clutch about now.