Draft Player News (Dec. 2)

Although technically, Kris Versteeg isn't part of the draft as of today, he will be on Monday and injury news should be considered significant.  On Tuesday night, Versteeg took an elbow from the Hurricanes' Derek Joslin, which has reportedly broken his nose.  A broken nose isn't necessarily going to keep him out of the line-up for too long, but it will cause him to miss some more time, probably in the range of a week or so, which will delay his début in the draft pool this season.

Versteeg has had a phenomenal start to the 2012 season, scoring 12 goals and 14 assists in 24 games for the Panthers, which has him unofficially sitting in 13th in pool scoring, going into Friday's action.

Versteeg was taken 2nd overall in this week's waiver draft by Ryan M., who is in desperate need of some points to get him back into the game.  For Ryan's sake he'll be hoping that Versteeg is ready to play on Monday night, when he becomes active for his team.  Ryan has since moved up a spot to 20th in Week Nine and does have striking distance to a couple of other spots above him.

One of the Kings' prized off-season acquisitions, Mike Richards, took a high hit from the Panthers' Sean Bergenheim in the 2nd period of their game on Thursday night and didn't return to the game.  The official line from the team is that he left with an upper-body injury and wasn't expected to return.  He'll be considered day-to-day, until there are further updates on his condition.

Richards has been good for the Kings to start the year, scoring 11 goals and 9 assists in 25 games, which is good enough for 57th overall in pool scoring, through Thursday night.

This isn't good news for Stuart G., who likely won't want to make a trade for him, so he's hoping for a speedy recovery.  Stuart currently holds the last money spot in the pool, 4th spot, but only by a thread.

The Minnesota Wild remarkably lost two players out of their line-up on Wednesday night, due to charleyhorses, one of them being Cal Clutterbuck, a player in the pool and non-pool forward Darroll Powe.  Both players are considered to be day-to-day and both are considered to be doubtful for tonight's game, at home to the Devils.

Clutterbuck, who is the only pool player in this byte, hasn't exactly been lighting it up for the Wild this season, having only 7 goals and 3 assists in 24 games this year, good enough for 247th overall.

Well, if Darren S. is going to start a climb back up to the top of the standings, he is going to need all of his players healthy, starting today.  Darren now sits 95 points out of 1st place and 70 points out of the last money spot.  I don't know if I want to say it is too late, but I think most are already saying it.

An undisclosed upper-body injury was enough to keep Predators forward Sergei Kostitsyn out of the line-up for their game against the Canucks on Thursday night.  Kostitsyn has already been out of the line-up once before this season, so it hasn't been the best of starts to the season for the dynamic winger.  He is currently listed as out day-to-day and is likely considered to be questionable for the weekend's action.

In 20 games this season, Kostitsyn has 3 goals and 8 assists, so his scoring results have not been too bad, scoring at over half a point-per-game, but the Predators could always use a little more offense, despite their 6-goal explosion on Thursday night.

This is one of three players that Niesa S. has lost on this post alone, the last two coming after this.  Niesa has been having a pretty good week to this point, as one of the weekly leaders with 17 points, through Thursday night.  If Kostitsyn can return on the weekend, Niesa's team will be in much better shape to contend for the Mover and Shaker for the week.

A lower-body injury, thought to be a slight aggravation of a previous groin injury was the reason that defenseman Sami Salo was out of the Canucks line-up on Thursday and it could have been argued that he was missed in a 6-5 loss to the Predators.  The injury isn't considered to be serious, likely keeping the defender out of the line-up to prevent further and more severe injury.

Salo has been quite good, in terms of defenseman standards, scoring 5 goals and adding 8 assists in 21 games for the Canucks, picking up a lot of points on the power play this season.  His presence has been good at both ends of the ice.

In the draft, Dale C. has benefited a lot from the little extra that Salo has provided this year, now sitting in 2nd spot in the standings, 17 points back of 1st place.  If Salo is back for Saturday's game against the Flames, this will be considered a little blip in his season and nothing to really worry about.

The Washington Capitals have not seen many dividends pay from the off-season signing of Roman Hamrlik, who has been rather disappointing this year. On Thursday night against the Penguins, the new coaching staff for the Caps decided to make Hamrlik a scratch and sent him up to the press box for the night.  The Capitals only allowed one goal in the game, but they were unable to score, which was also rather disappointing.

In 23 games this season, Hamrlik only has 1 goal and that is nowhere near the production that anyone thought they would see out of the veteran Czech defender.

And it is that kind of production that has forced Niesa to make Hamrlik her first drop in the waiver draft, picking up Panthers dynamo Jason Garrison.  This should likely be the last time we see Hamrlik in the draft player news, now that he'll be relegated to the sheet news.

An undisclosed injury kept Nikolai Antropov out of the Jets line-up on Thursday night, after feeling the effects of the injury on Tuesday night against the Senators.  Antropov didn't finish the game against the Sens on Tuesday and was held out of the game last night, but his status is yet to be updated officially.  We'll consider him out day-to-day for now, but without a proper update, we are just guessing at the moment.

Antropov has been okay for the Jets to start the year, scoring 4 goals and 11 assists in 22 games, which is good enough for 142nd in pool scoring.  It isn't a great start to the year, but the Jets, as a whole, haven't been highly potent in the offensive end.

This is the third of Niesa's players who were out on Thursday night, but fortunately, it doesn't sound like there is anything serious among all three of them, so that is certainly a positive.  Niesa, with another pick left in the waiver draft, can still make some noise in the pool this season.