More Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 6)

Missed out on the first post of the morning, Montreal's Lars Eller only had three minutes of ice-time last night against the Blackhawks, before leaving the game with an injury.  The injury is believed to be of the upper-body variety and after the game, the Habs elected to call up Sven Andrighetto, which likely means that Eller is going to be out of the contest against the Stars in Dallas.

Stacey M. starts Saturday's action in 6th place in the standings, only 9 points out of the money, right in the thick of the action.  Eller has 11 points in 28 games for the Habs this year, which are not great numbers, but if Stacey is going to push for the money, she'll need healthy bodies to stay in her lineup.

With some news like this, you would expect it to be in its own post, but since there really is no timetable involved, the news about defensemen Johnny Boychuk and Travis Hamonic only gets a note and not a post.  Both players were placed on the Injured Reserve in the last couple of weeks and the coaching staff has said that neither player are expected back any time soon.  This probably didn't even need a note, but I'm sure some enquiring minds wanted to know.

This is not good news for a pair of teams close to the bottom of the standings, as the 20th place team belonging to Brenda & Seward, has Hamonic and the 21st place team, belonging to Wyllie, has Boychuk.  Both teams are still 17 points clear of the bottom, but this isn't good news for either side.

The Washington Capitals are in New Jersey on Saturday evening, but they still won't be without defenseman Mike Green, who has been out with an upper-body injury.  The good news, however, is that they do expect the blueliner back in the line-up on Tuesday night, when they visit Tampa Bay.  In 19 games this season, Green has 12 points, so he was a productive member of the team when he left with his injury, so he'll be a welcome addition back and a focal point of trade talks, if he continues to produce.

This is definitely some good news for Troy, who gets another player in his lineup in Week Ten, on top of the two guys he picked in the Waiver Draft.  Troy's team is 16 points out of the money at the moment and getting a guy like Green on the back end should definitely help.

There are 12 games in the NHL on Saturday, including three early games, two of them starting at 11am MT.

In the two 11am games, we'll see Craig Anderson take on Marc-Andre Fleury in the Senators/Penguins game, while Jake Allen will go up against Jaroslav Halak in the Blues/Islanders game.  The other afternoon game should see, but not confirmed, Steve Mason and Jonathan Quick going head-to-head in the Flyers/Kings game.  All six goalies are pool goalies.

One notable pool goalie start... Michal Neuvirth will get his first crack at the can after coming off an injury for the Sabres on Saturday night.  He'll take on Roberto Luongo and the Panthers.

There doesn't appear to be any real surprises out there in the projected goalies, nor are there any goalies picked in the Waiver Draft going on Saturday.  Two goalies that are going that were not picked this week, Dustin Tokarski of the Canadiens and Cam Talbot of the Rangers, each get starts.  Otherwise, it appears to be business as usual.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.