Afternoon Player Notes (Dec 30)

The Columbus Blue Jackets will be without their captain, Nick Foligno, for tomorrow's New Year's Eve game against the Ottawa Senators.  Foligno returned home to attend a family matter and will be unavailable to play.  There's no immediate timetable for his return to the team, it could be just the one game or it could be a few.

This will mean that Mike will miss out on at least one skater game next week, which shouldn't be a big deal.  Mike's team goes into Sunday night's limited action in 6th place, 17 points out of 3rd place and his team does have a projected game tonight, so that could improve before the end of the week.Pi

Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta was absent from practice on Sunday, dealing with a lower-body injury and it may have only been a maintenance day for him, but the coaches did say that he is day-to-day with the injury, making him questionable for Monday's game in Minnesota.  Maatta almost played 19 minutes on Saturday night against the Blues, so I would have to lean on the likelihood that he will play, but just in case he doesn't, we at least know why.

This news byte shouldn't make Scott panic, but it probably makes him throw his hands in the air and exclaim, "not another one!"  His 24th placed team has been treading water above the surging duo of Brenda & Seward and even gaining some ground on Derek B.'s 23rd place team this week.

Matt Niskanen of the Washington Capitals missed out on Saturday night's game against the Senators, due to an upper-body injury he suffered on Thursday night, and he will be out for Monday's contest as well, an early afternoon tilt against the Predators.  Niskanen went through the concussion protocol and passed, according to reports, but he is dealing with another injury of some sort and is listed as day-to-day for right now.

Eric's team has suffered quite a bit already this year, ranking 24th in skater games played with 375 and 24th in goalie minutes played with 1,339, to date, but there has been some production in limited action, since his team is 22nd overall.  Another injury though, that won't help.

The New York Rangers will welcome Kevin Shattenkirk back into their lineup on Monday night in St. Louis. The offensive defenseman has been out since the 10th of December with a separated shoulder and has missed the last three weeks worth of action. This is some good news for Mike's team, who has made up that skater game that he is missing from Foligno and he could really use some production out of this one too.