Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 10)

Sami Vatanen of the Ducks left Wednesday night's game against the Avalanche with an upper-body injury and didn't return.  We haven't been able to locate much in the way of details about the injury, so we'll wait to see if it is anything serious.  He'll be on the list as out day-to-day, if he begins to miss time and no updates are provided.

For John S., his 19th place team has very little to cheer about.  His team is down in two of the three positional side bets that he has with Stuart, including the defense, where he doesn't have much of a chance any more.  Better not dwell in it too much.

It was a costly overtime victory for the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night, as their win over the Predators took the services of rookie forward Sam Bennett and veteran defenseman T.J. Brodie out of action, both with upper-body injuries.  Bennett suffered his injury on a hit from Mike Fisher in the 1st, while Brodie was hurt in the 2nd from a Roman Josi cross-check, both will be day-to-day, if they miss any time.

For Grant, losing Bennett will keep his hat in the race for 27th overall this season, as his team moved up to 26th so far this week, but only holds a 1-point advantage over Wes, going into Thursday's action.  Mike has Brodie this year and this could be a big loss, as his team tries to stay out of the race for 27th, his team 23 points clear of last place today.

The roster rotation on the blueline continued for the Blackhawks on Wednesday night, as Erik Gustafsson came out as a healthy scratch to make way for Christian Ehrhoff against the Blues.  Gustafsson has been in and out of the lineup on a semi-frequent basis, so this might not be the end of seeing him on the blog.

More blueline concerns for John S., if there was a race for him to be concerned about.  On the plus side, he has been seeing enough scoring to stay out of the last place race, as his 19th place team is 41 points clear of 27th with a little over a month to go.

Washington defenseman Nate Schmidt was dealing with a lower-body injury last week, but on Wednesday night, against the Kings, there was no mention of any injury, so there may have been a move to shift him to the press box, letting a defender with a little bit more size work against the grinding hosts from Los Angeles.  I would imagine that he'll draw back into the lineup before too long.

Finally, some money concerns!  Brian, the 3rd place team, by virtue of a tie-breaker, picked up Schmidt in the Waiver Draft, but hasn't had a consistent body in the Capitals lineup, nor has he had a bunch of scoring from him yet, only 3 points in 13 games.  With the race for 3rd so close, these are the missed games that might actually make a difference.

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