Rangers Keep Fedotenko On

The New York Rangers have come to terms with their leading preseason scorer Ruslan Fedotenko, signing the scoring forward to a new 1-year, $1 million deal on Monday. Fedotenko has been attending camp on a professional tryout basis and is one of a few players that have signed on with their tryout club before the season starts.

In 2010 with the Penguins, Fedotenko had 30 points in 80 games, including 11 goals, which actually had him ranked fairly low in overall league scoring.  In the preseason these past couple of weeks, Fedotenko picked up 7 points in the 5 games he played in, which was good enough to lead the Rangers and helped to earn him this contract.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Marian Gaborik	Michael Del Zotto	Henrik Lundqvist
Vaclav Prospal	Marc Staal	Martin Biron
Alexander Frolov	Dan Girardi
Brandon Dubinsky	Michal Rozsival
Ryan Callahan	Steve Eminger
Chris Drury	Matt Gilroy
Sean Avery	Mike Sauer
Ruslan Fedotenko
Artem Anisimov
Tim Kennedy
Erik Christensen
Todd White
Brandon Prust
Brian Boyle
Derek Boogaard
Derek Stepan

With this signing in place, the Rangers now have 25 players signed onto their active roster (as seen above), with an annual cap projection of $60.1 million, which is only $700,000 over the salary cap ceiling.  There is an expectation that Chris Drury will start the year on the injured reserve and there is a chance that Vaclav Prospal may start the year with him on the list, which will make some room for the extra players on the list, but that may not solve their small cap problem at the moment.  Stay tuned for more happenings before Wednesday's deadline.

As of right now, Fedotenko doesn't really have any direct implications to the pool, since he wasn't picked in the draft or listed on the selection sheet. However, Fedotenko's impact may come at the first waiver draft, where draft participants will be able to swap out players that are underachieving or injured for the long-term.  I'm sure if Fedotenko is good enough to be picked, he won't be hard to keep track of.

Schremp Out 4 Weeks

A Twitter post from the New York Islanders announced that forward Rob Schremp will be out of action for the next 3-to-4 weeks with a lower back strain.  I have not seen any more details about the injury or how it happened, but the expected timeline will run right into the start of the season and will likely mean he'll miss the whole of October.

Schremp now joins Mark Streit and Kyle Okposo on the sidelines and has likely opened up another spot for one of the Islanders' bubble players that are still in camp.

In the draft, this is Neil's second injury on the page, as he also has Andy McDonald on the list, but at least McDonald is day-to-day for the moment. Schremp was Neil's last pick in the draft, 14th round, 276th overall, looking to be more of a bargain pick than one of his meat & potato picks. Unfortunately, the bargain points likely won't start until November now.

Schremp was not included in the selection sheet pool this year, so there is no worries in that department.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Leafs Demote Seven

The Maple Leafs announced a number of cuts on Monday, sending four players down to the Marlies of the AHL and placing three on waivers in order to assign them to the minors tomorrow.  The four players heading down to the Marlies on Monday include Nazem Kadri, Luca Caputi, Christian Hanson and Jussi Rynnas, while Danny Richmond, Mike Zigomanis and Jay Rosehill were placed on waivers.  The latter three should be considered cut and will be removed from the team's line-up.

The remaining training camp roster looks a little something like this:

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Phil Kessel	Tomas Kaberle	Jonas Gustavsson
Kris Versteeg	Dion Phaneuf	J-S Giguere
Nikolai Kulemin	Francois Beauchemin	James Reimer
Clarke MacArthur	Luke Schenn
Mikhail Grabovski	Carl Gunnarsson
Colby Armstrong	Jeff Finger
Tyler Bozak	Brett Lebda
John Mitchell	Mike Komisarek
Fredrik Sjostrom	Matt Lashoff
Mike Brown
Colton Orr
Tim Brent

Currently, I have this roster sitting at 12 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies, plus a buyout and a cap overage penalty for a salary cap projection of $61.7 million at the moment.  There is theoretically only one cut left to be made for a 23-man roster, but a defenseman and a goalie will likely have to be cut before the roster deadline, which is Wednesday afternoon and the team will have to cut $2.3 million from the books.

Scratch off another young player from the selection sheet pool, as Kadri is a member of Box 25 on the sheet, the Eastern Conference youth box, but like a good number that are in there with him, he has been sent down to the minors.  The demotion to the minors is by no means permanent, but it may be some time before he gets another chance to shine for the Leafs.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Avalanche Cut Stoa

Well, another selection sheet player bites the dust (for now). The Avalanche cut down their roster to 24 players and on their way down to the AHL was Box 9 forward Ryan Stoa, who had survived a good number of cuts thus far in the preseason and was doing really well to be one of the few remaining players in the box to start the season.

Here's a look at the final 24 players on the roster...

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Paul Stastny	John-Michael Liles	Craig Anderson
Chris Stewart	Kyle Quincey	Peter Budaj
Matt Duchene	Ryan Wilson
Milan Hejduk	Kyle Cumiskey
T.J. Galiardi	Scott Hannan
Peter Mueller	Adam Foote
Ryan O'Reilly	Jonas Holos
Brandon Yip
Daniel Winnik
Cody McLeod
David Jones
David Koci
Philippe Dupuis
Mark Olver
Kevin Porter

Link to the Injury/News Page

Trio of Hip Flexors in St. Louis

A number of small injury concerns in St. Louis, all dealing with that nagging hip flexor injury. Currently ailing in St. Louis are Andy McDonald, Erik Johnson and Carlo Colaiacovo, in various degrees.

On Saturday, McDonald left the team's preseason game in the 2nd period with a hip flexor strain and didn't return, so his injury is relatively new, but not considered serious.  Johnson was kept out of the game against the Stars for the very same reason, while Colaiacovo has been dealing with the injury for the better part of training camp, but has started skating again and is close to making it into the opening night's roster.

The Blues don't open their season until Saturday night, so there is a couple extra days for these three to get themselves back into better shape, but they do open against the Philadelphia Flyers, who will bang and crash their way through.  It will be best if the Blues are 100% before facing the Eastern Conference champs.

All three players are active members in the Opiated Sherpa hockey pools, both the draft and the selection sheet.  First, in the draft, Andy McDonald is a part of Neil's team, Johnson is on Stacey's team and Colaiacovo is on Benson's team, but since we haven't started the season officially, there isn't a lot to say about this.  All three of them are going to be considered day-to-day until the Blues say otherwise.

On the sheet, these injuries have occurred to the Blues' top players in very important boxes.  McDonald is the top forward for the Blues in Box 1, while Johnson and Colaiacovo are considered the top two defensemen, sitting in Box 10 and 11.  Johnson was likely going to be the only player picked, if at all, among these three on the sheet... until now, of course.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Panthers Waive Grabner

The Panthers have made a couple more roster moves on Sunday, placing Michael Grabner, Joe Callahan and Andrew Peters on waivers today, likely for the purpose of sending them to Rochester in the AHL.  For the most part, the Panthers have been fairly quiet as they pared down their roster, but the news of Grabner going down should be coming as somewhat of shock to the fantasy experts, most of whom were pegging him for a breakout season with the cats.

Of course, I was kind of buying into the hype of Grabner breaking out in Florida, including him in Box 25 of the selection sheet this year. Unfortunately, that box has a pretty heavy curse placed upon it and only the chosen few seem to be breaking through. Be sure to check out the news page to know which players are in and/or out.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Crosby Continues to Rest Hip

This isn't major news, but it may be something worth pointing out... the Penguins are resting Sidney Crosby through the last game of the preseason, having rested him for the better part of this exhibition schedule with a sore hip flexor. The team doesn't think that the injury is major and would just prefer to have him ready for opening night.

This bit of news is worth mentioning since the hip flexor is a troublesome injury, much like the groin muscle, that can flare up and become irritating more than anything.  It's definitely a good idea to rest it now, before the team actually needs him.

As the number two pick overall in the draft, Wayne is definitely hoping that all this rest will do his best player some good.  I don't think there should be too much concern right now, but there might be some lingering doubts in the back of some minds.

Crosby also shares the top selection sheet box in the Eastern Conference, Box 17, and since not many people have submitted teams yet, I wonder if an injury like this would turn the tables on him and force more people to move to Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos or another.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Flames Lose Two More to Injury

The injury bug continues to bite the Flames in this preseason, as their preseason tilt against the Oilers on Friday night was another costly one. In the game, the Flames lost David Moss to a shoulder injury and Ales Kotalik to a knee injury a short time after.  The early word from the Flames is that both players have no timetable for a return at the moment and likely more tests are going to be done in the coming days before finding one out.

In the long and short of it, there are no direct pool implications due to these injuries, because neither player was actually drafted or ranked high enough to be considered for the selection sheet.  There may be some indirect implications to some of the team's other players, like in 2nd or 3rd line depth, where these two would find themselves.  It is likely that the lack of scoring punch from these injuries may affect a player like Curtis Glencross, who is on the sheet, or even Miikka Kiprusoff, who may fail to win an extra game or two, because of inexperienced depth players.  For now, however, it still should only be considered a minor impact, if any.

Blackhawks Lose Campbell to Knee Injury

Bad news for the Blackhawks before the season even starts, as they announced on Saturday that they will be without defenseman Brian Campbell for the next 4-to-5 weeks with a knee sprain.

I wasn't able to see a replay of the incident where the injury happened, nor have I found a good description of how it happened, but Campbell was injured in the 2nd period against the Penguins and did not return to the game.  The announcement via Twitter was all I could find on the injury.

This injury may put a damper to the start of the season for Jani, who has Campbell in the draft this year. Missing upwards of five weeks is the better part of the first segment of the season, where a prize is availble for the first nine weeks. Jani took Campbell in the 6th round of the draft, 113th overall.

Campbell is also available on the selection sheet, in Box 11, the 2nd defenseman selection of the Western Conference.  Campbell should be a viable option when he returns from injury, but if you have yet to pick your team, you may want to avoid him and then think about picking him up with one of your trades when he's healthy.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Devils Demote Palmieri

I think I had about the same amount of luck with all these young players last year as I did this year, which kind of sucks. The Devils have demoted their Box 25 forward, Nick Palmieri to the Albany Devils on Saturday, removing another one of these top prospects from contention in the selection sheet pool.

The Devils did have a few players that could have been contenders for the Box 25 distinction this season, but from what I was reading a week into camp, Palmieri was performing quite well and was getting some very favourable reviews.  Unfortunately, he'll likely be a call-up at best this season.

Countdown to the Premiere Games

The Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild will open the entire NHL schedule in Helsinki on Thursday with their match-up at the Hartwell Arena.  Helsinki was one of the sites for last year's NHL Premiere games and it proved to be a very solid success.

The Hurricanes are coming off a very disappointing season that was brought down by injuries and a resulting inconsistent line-up, while the Minnesota Wild just had a very inconsistent 2010 season as a whole, as both teams missed the playoffs.  Both teams have traveled on fairly similar off-season paths to get to this point, both building for the most part within their own organization, not venturing into the free agent market as much.

I think for these reasons, the teams were a little light on players in the draft this year, with both teams taking a few more of the safe picks, with very few of the sleepers or wild cards taken.  This game will likely be dominated by one team in the pool, can you guess which one it is?

Carolina Hurricanes			Minnesota Wild
Cam Ward, G	Dale B.		Antti Miettinen, F	Benson
Joni Pitkanen, D	Derek		Brent Burns, D	Chris
Joe Corvo, D	Don		Marek Zidlicky, D	Derek
Eric Staal, F	Kristy & Don		Andrew Brunette, F	Don
Jussi Jokinen, F	Larry		Mikko Koivu, F	Jani
Zach Boychuk, F	Stacey		Martin Havlat, F	Kristy & Don
Anton Babchuk, D	Stacey		Cam Barker, D	Kristy & Don
Jamie McBain, D	Wes		Gui Latendresse, F	Kristy & Don
			Niklas Backstrom, G	Peter

The draft tandem of Kristy & Don ended up picking four players that are on the roster for these two games in Finland, including Cam Barker, who may not be ready to go because of a hip injury. On the bright side, they have two of the projected top scorers from these two teams in Eric Staal and Martin Havlat, so there is a pretty good chance that they will be leading in the standings after the first game of the season on Thursday afternoon.

Unfortunately for Stacey, Zach Boychuk didn't make the European-bound Hurricanes, so he'll be short one player on this trip, which leaves the other Don in the pool, as the only other team with more than one player playing in these two games.

I wouldn't exactly call this a marquee match-up in Helsinki, but I suppose it isn't the worst way to start the season off.  These will be two teams that are desperate for some better results in 2011 and it all starts here.

The Blue Jackets and Sharks will open up their 2011 regular season in Stockholm this week, giving the people of Sweden another solid taste of some North American pro hockey.  The Sharks were Western Conference finalists in the playoffs last Spring, while the Blue Jackets were just outside of the playoffs, but have done a pretty good job retooling the team to make another run at the Spring dance.

This game will also be jam-packed with players in the draft this year, surprisingly with the same amount of Blue Jackets in the pool as there are Sharks.  I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, rather it gives a good indication that the Blue Jackets might be going the right way for a playoff spot again this season.  Here's a look at the drafted players who will be taking part in this 2-game series.

Columbus Blue Jackets			San Jose Sharks
Antoine Vermette, F	Allan		Antti Niemi, G	Allan
R.J. Umberger, F	Benson		Ryane Clowe, F	Clayton
Jakub Voracek, F	Dale B.		Joe Thornton, F	Dale C.
Kristian Huselius, F	Don		Dany Heatley, F	Jani
Fedor Tyutin, D	Jani		Patrick Marleau, F	Larry
Anton Stralman, D	Jani		Antero Niittymaki, G	Neil
Rick Nash, F	Leon		Dan Boyle, D	Ryan
Mathieu Garon, G	Leon		Joe Pavelski, F	Stuart
Derrick Brassard, F	Peter		Devin Setoguchi, F	Wes
Kris Russell, D	Stuart		Thomas Greiss, G	Wes
Steve Mason, G	Wes		Jason Demers, D	Wes

Wes leads all teams in this game with four players on the roster, but I would imagine that Thomas Greiss likely won't see any action, barring injury to the other two goaltenders ahead of him on the chart. I do believe he'll be making the trip as insurance, but won't see much action.

Newcomer to the pool, Jani, will have three players between the two teams, a couple of defensemen for the Jackets and Dany Heatley for the Sharks. That should be a good starting point to the season for him.

The games in Stockholm should be a good start to the season for the pool alone.

Finally, it will be the Boston Bruins and the Phoenix Coyotes doing battle at the O2 Arena in Prague.  This 2-game series will feature two teams that are riding some high expectations into the 2011 season and should provide the good folks in the Czech Republic some entertaining games, North America style.

The Bruins will be boasting a pretty good back-end this season, with a quality goaltending tandem and strong blueline corps, but their offense is mildly banged up and will be the biggest question mark of their season.  The Coyotes want to prove that their trip to the playoffs last season was no fluke and they are going to be bringing in a couple faces into the starting line-up to help them do it.  Overall, this should be a pretty good match-up from the drop of the puck on.

This game boasts a good number of pool players as well, which gives you the impression that both teams should fare well in the season, both in the standings and in the scoring races.  It isn't as jam-packed as the Stockholm matches, but it should provide plenty of points.

Boston Bruins			Phoenix Coyotes
Tuukka Rask, G	Derek		Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D	Clayton
Zdeno Chara, D	Jani		Derek Morris, D	Dale C.
Marc Savard, F	Larry		Lee Stempniak, F	Derek
Nathan Horton, F	Peter		Ilya Bryzgalov, G	Jani
Tim Thomas, G	Peter		Keith Yandle, D	Kristy & Don
Milan Lucic, F	Ryan		Wojtek Wolski, F	Neil
Patrice Bergeron, F	Stuart		Ed Jovanovski, D	Neil
Dennis Seidenberg, d	Stuart		Scottie Upshall, F	Ryan
David Krejci, F	Wayne		Shane Doan, F	Stuart
Tyler Seguin, F	Wayne		Ray Whitney, F	Wayne

Stuart and Wayne lead the way in this match-up with three players each, both teams having two Bruins and a Coyote on their team. Most of the curiosity has to be centered around Tyler Seguin, who is on Wayne's team, since he is the number two overall pick in the entry draft this Summer.  With Marc Savard out of the Bruins line-up due to a concussion, Seguin should get plenty of time to shine in his NHL debut with the Bruins.

Derek, Jani, Peter, Neil and Ryan all have two players each going in this game, which should make it very interesting.  There is going to be a lot happening among these five teams when this game is going, I'm sure.

I like this match-up very much and will try and catch at least one game, if I can.  I think this series has the potential to be the most entertaining at the end of it all.

This might be a strange coincidence, but the only European person in the pool, Jani, has the most players heading over to the European Premiere games this time around, with six on his roster. Kristy & Don, Wes and Stuart all have five players taking part in these games, while Peter and Derek each have four players.  I think the question begs to be asked, does the flying and jet lag at the beginning of the season make a big difference on the end result?  I guess we'll see in 27 weeks.

Blue Jackets Cut Johansen

The Blue Jackets made another 10 cuts to their training camp line-up on Saturday, just before their final preseason game, which goes tonight against the Atlanta Thrashers. Included in those cuts was Ryan Johansen, who was sent back down to the Portland Winter Hawks of the WHL, which will conclude his professional season, barring an early exit from the WHL playoffs, for Johansen.

Johansen was the 4th overall pick in this Summer's entry draft, being touted as a player with some dynamic offensive skills, but it doesn't look like he had enough in him at 18 years old to crack the line-up, so another year in junior will likely be good for him.

I really like the storyline that Johansen may have had if he had cracked the team this year. The Blue Jackets took him a little higher than most expected, no one really would have expected him to crack the line-up, which would have led into an interesting rookie season, especially with the likes of Rick Nash, Kristian Huselius, Jakub Voracek and Nikita Filatov on the team as well. With this demotion, his spot in Box 9 of the selection sheet is now a land mine.

Theodore Signs With the Wild

Ever since the injury to Josh Harding, the Minnesota Wild have been tied to Jose Theodore in the rumour mill and likely for good reason. Theodore was an unrestricted free agent with some pretty decent numbers behind him from last season and since we've already started to see veterans start to take less money for a job, it was looking more and more like a perfect fit. Well, you couldn't stop fate on Saturday, as a 1-year, $1.1 million deal was completed between Theodore and the Wild, likely giving Niklas Backstrom some quality back-up games at the very least, while challenging for the number one job at the same time.

With the Washington Capitals in 2010, Theodore had a pretty good year, having 4 more wins than his new counterpart in Minnesota.  Theodore went 30-7-7 with a shutout and an assist with the Capitals, but still, that wasn't quite enough to be the team's number one goalie going into the playoffs, deciding to go with Semyon Varlamov for a second straight run.  Theodore should bring some valuable experience to the position in Harding's absence.

This late addition to the Wild line-up will not help anyone in either pool for the foreseeable future. We'll have to wait nine weeks before there is a waiver draft in the draft pool and by then, we'll all know what Theodore is capable of and likely what he's going to do for the rest of the season by then. The selection sheet pool is totally locked in and choosing Harding will not give you Theodore by default. If you pick Harding, you'll get a lump that is sitting on the sidelines for the whole season.

With a couple more cuts to go, some shifting around of some goaltending to the injury list, the Wild camp list on my machine currently sits at 25 players and one buyout for an annual salary cap hit of $58.4 million, which is safely below the salary cap ceiling for 2011.  The extra cuts should make them into a very cap-flexible team this year, but it will be their play and their placement in the standings that will help management decide whether or not they will be buying or selling at the deadline.

For $1.1 million, I don't think the Wild can really lose in this deal.  Theodore will likely give them reasonable minutes and possibly challenge Backstrom for the number one job this season, but I'm thinking that this probably isn't going to be enough to save the Wild's season from being on the outside looking in when the playoffs start.  They will likely be a tough team to play against, but I just don't see it going much further than that.

More Demotions to Report

The Kings have also demoted their talented, but diminutive prospect defenseman Thomas Hickey, sending him to Manchester of the AHL.  Hickey has lost out on the 7th defenseman position to Jake Muzzin, who isn't on the selection sheet, rather it will be Hickey that will be the land mine pick in the box.  As one of the last cuts on the team, Hickey may finally get a chance with the Kings as an injury replacement.

The last spot on the sheet that I had to decide upon was the Predators back-up goalie job and I asked for some help from one of the bloggers on the net and they picked Mark Dekanich to come out ahead through training camp, but that ended up to not be the case. Rather it was Anders Lindback who won the job in the end, leaving the Box 16 spot in Nashville to be a land mine for the time being. Things could change in Dekanich's favour, but it may be awhile before that happens.

Tucker Retires

Sitting without a job as the NHL season comes upon us, Darcy Tucker has decided to call it a career, officially retiring on Friday. Tucker played in 14 seasons, playing in 947 games, scoring 215 goals and 261 assists for 476 points. Tucker was known for his penalty minutes, earning 1,410 of those in his illustrious career.

In the 2006 season, Tucker finished ranked 91st in pool scoring with 61 points in 74 games with the Maple Leafs, his career best year in the league.  After that season, he really fell off the map and became less and less of a fantasy pool gem.

Update on Salvador

The test results are back on Bryce Salvador and as expected, there isn't any good news. Salvador has indeed suffered a concussion and will be out of the Devils line-up indefinitely. There has been no timetable set for his return, which makes his fantasy value drop dramatically.  If you were thinking about using his services in Box 28 of the selection sheet, you may want to find another option.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Blackhawks Cut Down Even Further

The Blackhawks trimmed down their training camp roster again on Friday morning, sending down Igor Makarov, Kyle Beach and Brian Connelly, among others, to Rockford of the AHL.  The Blackhawks are still walking the tight rope of the salary cap ceiling number and some of these entry-level contracts may be a little too heavy to hold onto, despite their good play in camp this year.

Unfortunately, these cuts have affected the selection sheet, knocking Makarov from active duty and removing his usefulness from the choices in Box 9. From what I was reading Makaraov was impressing a number of people, but if he was really impressing that much, the Blackhawks would have likely made a move to make room for him, but otherwise opted for sending him to the minors, since he doesn't have to clear waivers.

Link to the Injury/News Page