Morning Player Notes (Nov 25)

The Arizona Coyotes are expected to be without goaltender Darcy Kuemper for Sunday's afternoon game against the Calgary Flames, due to a lower-body injury and the team has recalled Adin Hill to act as backup for Antti Raanta for the game.  There was no indication of the severity of the injury to Kuemper, just the fact that he wasn't ready to go for Sunday.  We'll have him on the list as out day-to-day and we'll update the list, as soon as we know.

I don't think you can classify this as a missed start for Stuart today, it was likely going to be Brian's start anyways, but if Raanta was to get into trouble, it wouldn't be Kuemper cleaning up the mess.  Stuart's team has slumped a bit in Week Eight, now in 2nd place and 14 points back of Troy, he'll know his team will get a better pick in the Waiver Draft, at least.

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist missed out on Saturday night's game against Columbus, as he has now been sidelined with a concussion.  There is no timetable available for his return, nor has there been any talk of the severity of the head injury, so it could be a lot of wait-and-see here now too.  Hornqvist has been having a decent season, so far, scoring 9 goals and 15 points in 21 games, good enough for 137th overall after Saturday night, so he'll leave a pretty good hole in their lineup.  The Penguins didn't exactly miss him last night, beating the Jackets, 4-2, without him.

I'm sure Chelsea would have preferred to have seen Hornqvist in the lineup for a win like that, as her team is mired in 22nd place.  Here's hoping that the Penguins can help her out a little bit this week, by letting her know how bad this head injury is to a key forward on her side, but she could use a bonus round pick on an injured player like Hornqvist, if the news doesn't come until late next week.

It's expected that we will see the return of Jesse Puljujarvi to the Oilers lineup tonight, when they roll into Los Angeles for a date with the Kings. The new coaching staff in Edmonton want to get this top prospect rolling at the NHL level and requested his return, to which management obliged on Saturday, with the end goal reportedly to finally get him into a top six role.  In 11 NHL games this season, the young Finn has only 1 goals, but he did post 4 points in four games down in his stint in the AHL, so there is some hope there somewhere.

So, a little bit of good news for Chelsea, as she will get to decide whether or not she'll keep Puljujarvi through the Waiver Draft, as his audition for a job in the hockey pool is now on the line.  Trading Hornqvist for Puljujarvi doesn't look like a solid trade of bodies, but this is the hand her team has been dealt and now she'll have to play with it.