Afternoon Player Notes in the Draft (Jan 7)

In a 3rd period collision with the Leafs' Nazem Kadri, Ducks goalie John Gibson was forced from the 4-0 loss to Toronto with a lower-body injury and Frederik Andersen came on in relief. Thursday afternoon, the Ducks coaching staff suggested that the injury was very minor and that we shouldn't necessarily count him out of the team's next start, Friday night, at home to St. Louis.

The rookie keeper belongs to Clayton after a Waiver Draft claim in Week Nine and he has been very good since his recall, earning himself the number one job in Anaheim.  If Clayton has any shot at all of coming back from 19th place in the standings, he'll need Gibson healthy.

Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson was hurt on Monday night against the Kings and is now dealing with a lower-body issue, which could keep him out upwards of two weeks, but is still only considered to be a day-to-day issue.  On Wednesday night, Johnson missed his first game with this injury, unable to play against St. Louis, with a waiver wire pick-up, Andrew Bodnarchuk, taking his place in the Colorado lineup.

Johnson has been a decent pick for Jeremy's team this season, which will go into Thursday night's action in 2nd place, 4 points out of 1st and with a share of the Mover & Shaker lead in Week Fourteen.  With 16 points this season, Johnson has chipped in here and there and could be missed before too

The Montreal Canadiens have still been having some problems in their team's consistency, so the latest victim up to the press box was forward Tomas Fleischmann, who has only picked up 2 points in his last 19 games and the team was hoping that Sven Andrighetto was to help out against the Devils. Montreal did pull out a 2-1 win, so there is a chance that Fleischmann could sit again, until the Canadiens have some more problems in the win column.

Fleischmann has not been a very productive pick-up in the Waiver Draft, having only those mentioned 2 points for Kristy & Don, who haven't had a great deal of luck with either pick in the Waiver Draft, likely to the benefit of everyone else.  They have still moved up to 12th in the standings though.

The New Jersey Devils are going through a rash of injuries of their own at the moment and on Wednesday night, they added one more name to that list, in defenseman John Moore, who suffered a lower-body injury and didn't return to the game.  It was unclear where Moore had suffered the injury, as there were a couple of instances where it may have happened, but as of Thursday afternoon, there still wasn't a definitive answer to that concern.

Yet another Waiver Draft pick-up on this post, this time belonging to Brian, whose team is 8th, 24 points out of the money.  Moore is actually a negative impact player from the Waiver Draft, scoring less points than the player he was dropped for, since the Waiver Draft.  Brian's team still plugs away, however, and maybe this injury won't necessarily be too long or too much of a hindrance.

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