Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 29)

One note missed from Wednesday's post, the Anaheim Ducks were without blueliner Sami Vatanen in their game against the Sharks, due to an illness.  The Ducks are in Calgary tonight to take on the Flames and there is no indication that he will miss the game, as of this morning.  Was likely just the run off of the holiday season getting the best of him.  If he does miss tonight's game, he'll still be listed as day-to-day.

Mike's team has stayed pat, thus far in the week, staying at 10th place, while there is quite a fair bit of movement going on in the standings.  His team has lost a little ground on the money spots though, but a healthy team and a hot week could get him right back in there.

The Pittsburgh Penguins goalie situation became a little more clear, but not in the way that anyone would prefer... injury. Matt Murray left Wednesday night's game against the Hurricanes after the 2nd period had concluded, leaving Marc-Andre Fleury to tend to the net and eventually get the win.  What we knew after the game was that it was a lower-body injury, but the team will await more tests to be done.  It's probably fair to think that Fleury will get the nod on Saturday against the Habs.

Tough news for Scott, as the goalies have been playing a big part this season.  Once Scott had Murray return from his first injury to start the season, he shot up the standings, but as of this morning, his team has fallen out of the money, overlapped by Cam, who has Fleury.

The Tampa Bay Lightning punished forward Valtteri Filppula for missing a team meeting on Wednesday by scratching him for the game against the Canadiens in the evening.  The Lightning are back-to-back tonight, with the Maple Leafs in town, and Filppula will draw back in after his 1-game absence.

Also in that game against the Habs, the Bolts suffered a pair of injuries to forwards Vladislav Namestnikov and Brayden Point.  As of Thursday morning, Namestnikov was said to be day-to-day with an upper-body injury, unlikely to play tonight, while Point is now on the shelf for the next 4-to-6 weeks, also suffering an upper-body injury.

Filppula belongs to one of our hotter teams in these last couple weeks, as Jeremy's team has boosted up to 8th place and gets a body back in the active lineup tonight.  Ryan and Clayton have now both lost a Tampa player to injury, but Ryan is much closer to the money race than Clayton and his player is much better off this morning.  Ryan will open Thursday night, 22 points out of the money.