Morning Player Notes (Jan 10)

Hockey players having families... what's up with that?

The Ottawa Senators granted forward Matt Duchene a leave of absence this week to be with his wife, as she was expecting in the next day or two, so he wasn't in the lineup for the team's game in Anaheim last night.  The Senators still managed to pull a 2-1 overtime win out of the fire without him, which is good for the team.  He should be rejoining the team very shortly.

That's a missed skater game for Jesse's team, which is keeping up with Wes' team this week, only trailing the top spot in weekly scoring by 4 points, 22-18.  Jesse's team is 4 points clear of 3rd and 4th this week, so it's looking more like a two horse race.  Of course, that could change with a busy night in the schedule, like it should be tonight.

Things are not very rosy in Columbus this morning, as the Blue Jackets announced that they will sit Sergei Bobrovsky for tonight's game against the Nashville Predators, as he has violated a team policy in the last 24 hours, according to a press release.  Although it didn't say it explicitly in the release, this does appear to be a team suspension of sorts, but for now, we'll call it a healthy scratch, but it's turning out to be a story worth following.

This isn't exactly good news for Kristy & Don, who have thoroughly enjoyed the workload that Bobrovsky has been given this year, as they lead the hockey pool in goalie minutes played.  Their team, however, has just relinquished 4th place to Wes' team and could have really used this start to help try and get it back.  More developments in Columbus are on the way, I'm thinking.