Morning Player Notes (Dec 7)

On Thursday, at Ducks practice, forward Rickard Rakell wasn't on the ice for the session and the team is citing a lower-body injury as the reason why he didn't skate.  There was no indication whether or not he would be able to play tonight, at home to the Hurricanes, but his lack of participation at practice does cast a shadow of doubt over the whole thing.  No one has said one way or the other, so if he does miss tonight's game, he will be listed as day-to-day.

Rakell has 5 goals and 20 points in 30 games this season for the Ducks and if he falls out of the lineup, that does leave a good sized hole for the game against Carolina.  Mike's 6th place team has enjoyed that production and wouldn't care to see it disappear, even for one match.

Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Gustav Forsling didn't suit up on Thursday night in Vegas, as he is dealing with a minor shoulder problem, according to the team's coaching staff.  Forsling was a late add to the Blackhawks roster this season, only playing in 11 games so far, scoring 1 goal and 5 points.  He's considered to be day-to-day at the moment.

Neil went rummaging through the available players list to find a defenseman with a decent scoring rate at the Waiver Draft and came up with Forsling.  It's a tough pill to swallow when your picked player gets hurt in his first week on duty.

Two key injuries for the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night, as they lost both Bobby Ryan and Matt Duchene on two separate incidents against the Canadiens.  Ryan left in the 1st period with an upper-body injury and the immediate belief is that there will be some concussion testing on his injury, so we'll keep a close eye on that.  Duchene left in the 2nd period with a lower-body injury and the reports out there suggest that he pulled something while skating.  The team hasn't confirmed anything just yet, but you can imagine that they will ahead of their Saturday tilt against the Penguins.

There is cause for concern for both players being out for the long-term, but without confirmation, it's hard to say for sure.  Jeremy and Jesse could lose two productive members of their pool teams, Jesse more so, since Duchene has been over a point-per-game pace to start this year.

The Pittsburgh Penguins just got forward Patric Hornqvist back from a concussion earlier this week, but he couldn't make it out of the 1st period of Thursday night's game against the Islanders, leaving with an undisclosed injury.  The coaching staff had no updates on Hornqvist's condition, not saying whether or not that the injury was related to his concussion that he had earlier.  It's a matter of wait-and-see again here now too.

Tough break for Chelsea's team, since he missed out on a scoring barrage in the last two periods of the game.  Her team did have a good night last night though, lifting the weekly total up to 16 points, but it's still 8 points back of the weekly leaders, but that's something that could be made up over the weekend.