Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 20)

On Monday night, versus the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Boston Bruins were without forward David Krejci again, as the play-making winger is currently dealing with an upper-body injury.  Krejci was also unable to play in Tuesday night's game in Buffalo either, thanks to the injury, but he is only listed as day-to-day at the moment, so that is about the only positive we will be able to draw for the time being.  Krejci has 5 goals and 14 points in 18 games this season, the lack of games due to injury this season. 

If Krejci had been able to play more and produce at the same rate, Dale B. would be far more comfortable at the top of the standings, instead of just the 9-point lead he has after Tuesday night's action.  So far, his team has been okay without Krejci playing every game.

A poor showing earlier in the week was the leading cause for the coach's decision to make defenseman Brandon Montour into a healthy scratch on Tuesday night. Montour had a game where he was a -3 on Monday against the Devils, so up to the press box he went for Tuesday's game on Broadway. The Ducks were not able to pull out a win against the Rangers, so there's a fine chance that Montour will return to the lineup before too long.

Brian's team continues to struggle of late, but his team isn't too far away from resuming a role in a money position, as his team is only 8 points out of 3rd place after Tuesday night's action.  His team hasn't been able to find the points to start the second segment, ranking 23rd since the start of Week Ten.

The Arizona Coyotes roster is still in a state of flux, as it just can't seem to find any consistently positive results in the 2018 season, to date.  Anthony Duclair had played in seven straight games, since his last time up in the press box, but with only 2 points in those games and some roster moves earlier in the day meant that he was drawing the short straw, as the Coyotes continue to look for more offense.  They were not able to find it last night, losing 3-2 to the Panthers and their struggles just seem to continue.

Surprisingly, Wilton didn't opt to drop Duclair in the Week Nine Waiver Draft, as his stretch of scratches were documented quite well on the blog, ahead of the player swap, but maybe some hope that his game would turn around was the leading factor to keeping him.  13 points in 27 games isn't too bad, I guess, but he could feature in more games with a bit more of a consistent effort.

A nagging upper-body injury has been hampering the production of defenseman Oscar Klefbom in recent weeks, so the Edmonton Oilers have opted to give Klefbom some time off, placing him on the Injured Reserve on Tuesday, which should provide him a week off of action and the team's hope is that he just needs the IR minimum to sort himself out.  The 24-year old rearguard hasn't been very productive all year, only picking up 3 goals and 9 points in 33 games, also carrying a -8 rating, which is far from where he should be at this point.  The rest should help, one would think.

Stacey C.'s team has seen a boost in production since the Waiver Draft, currently ranking 7th since the start of Week Ten and that is with a poor producing Klefbom in tow.  If he can get this defenseman back on track, his team can certainly start to climb the standings even faster.

There was plenty of shock in the media outlets, when the Tampa Bay Lightning decided to include forward Tyler Johnson among the scratches for their game against the Golden Knights on Tuesday night. There didn't seem to be any indication why this was the case, be it injury or just a healthy scratch, so we'll continue to wait on further details. The Lightning are back home to play the Senators on Thursday night, so we'll probably know before then.

I'm sure Mike was just as surprised, as anyone would be, especially on a potent Lightning team, where Johnson actually has been decent, picking up 23 points in 32 games this season, ranking 112th in pool scoring.  If there is anything more to this news byte, we'll try and get it up on the blog as soon as possible.

The Vancouver Canucks got Erik Gudbranson back in their lineup, which meant that someone had to come out to make room for him and that guy was Ben Hutton, who was given the night off against the Montreal Canadiens.  Unfortunately, the team's defense didn't necessarily improve, dropping a 7-5 decision to the visiting Habs.  There will likely be some roster decisions made before the next game, Thursday night in San Jose, in which I would imagine Hutton would return.

Scott's team was already behind the 8-ball a little bit in the projected games column, thanks to the schedule not favouring some of his players, so the scratch of Hutton was definitely a loss on the night, especially on a night where the Canucks scored five goals.  Scott's team continues to try and claw back to the rest of the group, sitting 19 points back of 24th.