Noon Player Notes in the Draft (Jan 2)

The Dallas Stars are expected to be without forward Valeri Nichushkin tonight in New Jersey, as he has been dealing with a lower-body injury.  The young scoring Russian had been questionable over the last couple of days, as he hasn't been practicing very much and now it has come to a head with his expected scratch tonight.  He'll be on the list as out day-to-day for the time being.

Scott goes into a busy Saturday night down 24 points from the money spots and now without a decent scorer on a high scoring team.  This could be a costly injury, if he's out longer than one game.

A surprise bit of news from the Tampa Bay Lightning, as they are expecting some help coming back up front, so they had to make a move down and it turns out to be Jonathan Drouin, being sent down to the AHL for a regular demotion, not a conditioning assignment, like some may assume.  Drouin had a great start to the year, but an injury has really slowed his game and now the Lightning want him to find his confidence again.

Allan's team was really starting to take some strides up the middle of the table, until this week.  In Week Twelve, his team finished in 14th, but is now back down to 16th, after a number of weeks hovering below these rankings.  He needs these skater games to keep moving back up.

Well, further to my notes for the goalies, the Columbus Blue Jackets have put Sergei Bobrovsky back on the Injured Reserve, retroactive to December 31st, which means he'll be eligible to come off on January 6th, dealing with the groin injury, which has kept him out for a while already.  In the same announcement, the Jackets had also announced that they have activated defenseman David Savard from the IR, which is some good news, at the very least.

A pair of Columbus moves for Troy's lineup today, one back in, the other not coming back in.  I'm sure Troy would have preferred to have Bobrovsky back instead of Savard, if he had the choice, but the 5th place pool team, 11 points out of the money, doesn't get to pick.  Maybe Savard can spark some extra offense for his side.

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