Morning Player Notes (Jan 13)

A lower-body injury kept New York Rangers defenseman Neal Pionk out of the lineup on Saturday afternoon, which was a bit of a surprise note, since the sophomore defender finished the team's last game on Thursday night against the Islanders.  It sounds like a day-to-day issue, the Rangers haven't said anything more about it, so we won't get too excited about it just yet.  Pionk has been solid this season, posting 5 goals and 20 points in 41 games, good enough for 37th among all defenders this year.

Troy's team is still hanging around in the money mix, but this is the first of a couple of notes on today's blog, so maybe we'll wait to go into a lot of detail here, but a couple of notes means that the 18-point gap to 3rd place may be more of an uphill climb than anticipated.

A few notes from the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night, when they played the Ottawa Senators... first, Justin Braun came off the Injured Reserve from his knee injury, which meant that Joakim Ryan's time on the ice had come to an end, taking his seat in the press box as a healthy scratch to make room for Braun.  One in, one out, nice and easy there.

In the game, Joonas Donskoi had to leave the game after taking a hit up high, suffering what is believed to be a head injury of sorts, but no official word on the injury yet.  The Sharks don't play again until Tuesday, getting the day off on Sunday, so it might not be until tomorrow until word gets out about his injury status.

Braun's return was good for Chelsea's team, Ryan's scratch was par for the course on Eric's team and the Donskoi injury will be a concern for Wes' team, since he has been a very good contributor to a red-hot pool team in recent weeks.  Stay tuned!

Well, I couldn't see anything that would suggest that there was an injury that forced veteran defenseman Anton Stralman out of the Tampa Bay Lightning lineup on Saturday night, so it could very well have been a healthy scratch.  The defender hasn't registered a point in his last five games, he's had a +1 plus/minus rating in that time and his time only took a small dip in his last game against the Hurricanes on Thursday, so maybe it was time for a rest.  He's day-to-day as a healthy scratch... for now.

This was Troy's second note of this post, taking another skater game away from his blueline.  His blueline ranks 15th in scoring this season, tied for 15th in the second segment as well.  It's been disappointing for his team back there, since they rank 10th in games played in the pool, it's just not the scoring rate he needs for a money spot right now.

In Saturday night's contest between the Capitals and the Blue Jackets, Washington's number one goalie Braden Holtby had to leave a game after taking Cam Atkinson's stick blade to the face, coming through the cage of his mask and clipping him around the eye area.  The initial prognosis didn't sound all that positive from the Capitals coaching staff, but we'll await more confirmation about that in the next day or so.  The Capitals play again on Monday night, at home to St. Louis, so we should definitely know more by then.

Scary stuff for Stacey C. and his 1st round pick this year, especially since Stacey's team hasn't been able to get much traction in the standings and losing his top pick might sink his season, if the injury is significant.  As of Sunday morning, Stacey's team sits 17th, 63 points out of the money.