Saturday, November 19, 2011

Frolik Day-to-Day With Shoulder Problem

On Wednesday night against the Canucks, Blackhawks forward Michael Frolik tumbled into the boards awkwardly and injured his shoulder. He left the game, not to return. Thursday, he wasn't able to practice and the team called Ben Smith up from the minors, taking his place for Friday's game against the Flames. As of Saturday morning, his status for the evening's game against the Oilers is in doubt, calling him questionable to play, likely shading towards the side of doubtful.

Frolik has not been one of the more prolific Blackhawks players to reach the scoresheet early on this season, having only scored 3 goals and 4 assists in 19 games for the club, but he is still producing points, which is all one could really ask for in the end.  Going into Saturday's action, Frolik currently ranks 269th in pool scoring, 189th among all forwards, which actually has him outside the top 176, where draft teams would like to see all of their forwards (22 teams times 8 forwards each).

ImplicationsUnfortunately for Derek W., he could use a little bit more regular production from Frolik and he could also probably request to get back in the line-up sooner, rather than later, since his pool team is somewhat fading away. Derek took Frolik 226th overall in the draft, down in the 11th round, but playing with the Blackhawks should have made him a pretty good candidate for a sleeper pick.

Going into Saturday's action, Derek sits in 20th spot, 9 points back of 19th and 4 points up on 21st, so it would be fairly important to get some points out of the weekend's games, hopefully to get his head above water.  With the waiver draft only a couple of weeks away, he is in line for a very sweet pick.

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