Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 4)

In the same game where Milan Michalek suffered a broken finger from Flyers defenseman Radko Gudas, the same rough-housing defender got forward Mika Zibanejad up high with a hit, given a major for interference and a game misconduct, plus a 3-game suspension for the hit. Well, that has also cost Zibanejad at least one game, as he wasn't able to go on Thursday night against Chicago and there hasn't been much word as to how much time he'll miss exactly, but the coaching staff seem optimistic.

Ryan's team was once in the top three... back in Week One.  After Thursday night's action, his team currently sits in 11th, but the last time it finished a week in that position, it jumped back up to 6th, which the fate of his Waiver Draft pick-ups will decide whether or not that will happen again.  His team is currently 26 points out of the money, looking forward to the quick return of Zibanejad.

Detroit forward Teemu Pulkkinen was on the wrong end of a Martin Hanzal hit in the Red Wings/Coyotes game on Thursday night and it forced the young scoring forward from the game with an upper-body injury.  There was no immediate word, as to the nature of the injury or how serious it is, but we're going to monitor this one.

Pulkkinen is one of the Waiver Draft pick-ups this week, taken by Scott, as he gambled by dropping an injured Tyler Ennis and now likely activating an injured Pulkkinen to take his spot.  The hope here is that Pulkkinen isn't very badly hurt and that he can return sooner, rather than later.  We'll have to wait and see.

Reports had surfaced during the game between the Devils and the Hurricanes that forward Travis Zajac had left the game with an upper-body injury and at the time, he was questionable to return. By the time on ice report, Zajac left midway through the 1st period, tried one shift at the end of the period and didn't come back for the 2nd. As of Friday morning, we still haven't seen any news on what it could be or how serious it is. We'll keep an eye on this situation.

Zajac is another pick-up this week in the Waiver Draft, as Neil scooped him up to help his run at the money in the coming weeks.  Neil tried to improve his standing with a healthy drop, letting go of Antoine Vermette to get Zajac, so if Zajac is out long-term, it becomes quite a big loss.

Click here for the updated injury/news page on the website