Afternoon Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 19)

The New York Islanders are set to go tonight in Arizona and they will do so without forward Kyle Okposo, who is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. The injury has been reported as one that has been nagging the power forward for a while and they will sit him for at least a couple of games, starting tonight.

John S.'s team has been falling in the standings and another injury won't likely help his case, as his team goes into the late action on Saturday in 10th place.  His team is now 24 points back of the money, only five weeks from finishing in 3rd place, quite the drop.

Tampa Bay defenseman Matt Carle was a healthy scratch on Friday night, when the Lightning were taking on the Capitals in Washington.  Carle has not been the consistent player that he was once, failing to register a point this year and has already been a scratch four times this year.  With all of the injury concerns in Tampa Bay, the roster seems to go back to Carle, despite his lack of offense.

On the plus side for Wes, he doesn't have Carle on his team for the offense anymore, rather his 16 PIM this year has been helping him now.  Wes has made a move to the PIM pool in the Waiver Draft, but his team hasn't been nearly as dominant in that statistic this week either, only ranking tied for 6th in minutes this week and now holds a 36-minute lead.

The New Jersey Devils are expecting to have Travis Zajac back in their lineup tonight, when they host the Ducks in a couple of hours.  Zajac has been out for the last couple of weeks with an upper-body injury, but has been given the green light to return and just in time for a good match-up tonight.

Neil could use another healthy body in his lineup to improve his standing in the money group tonight, as his team sits in 3rd place, 5 points back of 2nd and 7 points back of 1st.

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