Morning Player Notes (Mar 2)

Playing a little catch-up after a busier finish to the week at the office. From Thursday night, Jamie Oleksiak was a healthy scratch for the first time since returning to the Dallas Stars in a trade from Pittsburgh, sitting out against the Kings. The Stars have been struggling to find some consistency of late and the move to put Oleksiak upstairs obviously didn't hurt them, so it will be interesting to see how they approach tonight's game in St. Louis.

Brian can't be too happy with Oleksiak's production since the Week Nine Waiver Draft and probably understands the scratch to some degree, only 1 assist in 27 games played in Pittsburgh and Dallas, not a lot to show for it all  He was doing so well beforehand too, it's one of those hockey pool mysteries.

Vegas defenseman Nick Holden was not only a healthy scratch for Thursday's game against the Panthers, he also sat for last night's game against the Ducks, so the Golden Knights coaching staff must not be very happy with him of late. In his last outing, on the 22nd against the Jets, he played less than 15 minutes and was a -1 on the night.  Vegas hosts the Canucks on Sunday afternoon and it would seem unlikely that Holden would draw back in, unless someone is out of gas, since the Golden Knights won these last two games.

The duo of Brenda & Seward have been holding onto Holden since opening day and have picked up 13 points in 53 games this season, as their blueline ranks 12th in the pool in scoring this season.  They have had some major contributions elsewhere, but defense hasn't been the bane of their season, to say the least.

We must be getting close to the playoffs, as the San Jose Sharks have just dropped the term "mid-body injury" on us all, describing why forward Evander Kane couldn't dress for the game against the Avalanche on Friday night. The reports are saying that he isn't expected to be out for very long, a day-to-day issue, while the Sharks handled the Avalanche with a 4-3 in his absence, so there probably isn't any rush to get him back either. The Sharks host Chicago on Sunday, he's probably questionable for that game now.

Another skater game lost for Clayton's team, which seems to be falling like a rock in this third segment of the regular season.  Clayton's team is 22nd since the start of Week Nineteen, already trailing Stuart by 50 points in these last few weeks for the segment lead.  A very bad sign.

Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets was reportedly feeling under the weather on Friday night, unable to dress or get the start against the team's biggest rivals out of Nashville.  Hellebuyck's loss of a start was certainly Laurent Brossoit's gain, as he even managed to snag the 5-3 victory in this one, so the team will be brimming with confidence moving forward, one would think.  Hellebuyck isn't expected to be out for very long, the team is in Columbus to take on the Jackets and it would be a good bet that Hellebuyck draws back in.

That was likely a missed start for Jeremy's team on Friday night, but there was no guarantee that he would have earned the win, but I'm sure we'd all like to think so, if Brossoit could.  Even with Hellebuyck in tow this season, Jeremy's goaltending hasn't been as good as one may have thought, ranking 10th in the pool, to date, a reason why his team may be in 19th.