Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 26)

A couple of injury notes from the first half of the week that was, missed out in the only post of the week, minus the Newsletter, of course.

In Detroit, Stephen Weiss finally return from injury again, only to leave the game again with an injury.  In his bid to become Mayor of Injury Prone Town, Weiss came back from a shoulder injury, registered an assist, only to get popped by Nikita Zadorov of the Sabres, forcing him from the game with an upper-body injury, possibly in the concussion variety.

Speaking of upper-body injuries in Detroit, defenseman Niklas Kronwall also had to leave the game against the Sabres with a similar injury after being sandwiched by a couple of Sabres players.  There was no immediate word on his condition, but the holiday break will give him and the team ample time to diagnose and recover... in theory.

Both players are going to be listed as out day-to-day, until further notice, assuming that they miss Saturday's game against the Senators.  This doesn't bode well for the Greenley boys, as Benson has Weiss, a Waiver Draft pick-up, while Stuart originally drafted Kronwall in the 4th round.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 24)

I didn't do much yesterday morning, so I thought I would do a little bit of catch-up, while the NHL is on its holiday break.  Games don't get back underway until Saturday night and we might see a post on Saturday morning, if news comes out in the pregame skates.

On Monday night, the Calgary Flames were without one of their young kids in the lineup, as Josh Jooris was held out of the game against the Kings with a couple of different injuries, one upper and lower, by some reports.  Jooris has been playing through some injury problems lately, so it would seem more than likely that he will be back for the return of play on Saturday night.

Jooris was a Waiver Draft pick-up for Wyllie this season, but he has only picked up 1 assist in seven games played since the start of Week Ten.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are still in the middle of a mumps breakout and the latest pool casualty was forward Brandon Sutter, who missed the last two games before the break, as he was quarantined with a couple of teammates.  If the results come back negative, Sutter could be out for a couple of weeks.

Sutter belongs to Stacey C. this season and Stacey is likely hoping for a negative test result.  Stacey's team is climbing the ladder, having moved up to 16th place since a rough start to the season.

Not sure if this was a scheduled start missed or not, but Niklas Backstrom was held out of the lineup against the Capitals with an illness of some sort.  The Wild had to call up John Curry on an emergency basis to back-up Darcy Kumper.  If the illness is just a slight flu bug, it should mean that Backstrom should be good for a return on the weekend.

Of late, Backstrom hasn't been too bad with the Wild, after a pretty rocky start, where he wasn't seeing much action.  Brian is still quite close to the goaltending basement, but at least he didn't have to drop Backstrom for someone of lesser minutes.

An undisclosed injury kept Jaroslav Halak from dressing for the Islanders' last game before the holidays and the Islanders are being tight-lipped about the reasons why. Halak didn't practice much on Monday and Tuesday and then the team called up Kevin Poulin as an emergency bench warmer.  Halak will be considered day-to-day for now, until further notice.

Tony has been holding tight in 3rd place over the last few weeks, but could have really used that start (and a win), as Dale C., Clayton and Stacey M. continue to breathe down his neck.

The New York Rangers finally disclosed that forward Lee Stempniak was not a healthy scratch for the last few games, rather he was the latest victim of the mumps epidemic.  Stempniak has already missed about a week's worth of action and is likely due to miss another week or so with the illness, as the Stempniak waits for the worst to end.

Here is another Waiver Draft pick-up this year, as Leo has picked up another ex-Calgary player.  Stempniak has been good, when healthy, and since the Waiver Draft, he had 2 assists in four games.

Another Pittsburgh Penguins forward hits the list before the break and it doesn't sound very good... at all. Blake Comeau was placed on the Injured Reserve on Tuesday with a wrist injury after Monday's game against the Panthers. The coaching staff expect him to be out for several weeks, whatever that means, but it isn't very good at all.

Another Waiver Draft pick-up on the list... this is outrageous!  We pick these players up to take the spot of hurt players, not to see these guys get hurt too.  Well, Allan did manage to see 4 points in eight games, but that might be about it for a while now.

The Tampa Bay Lightning spent one game without defenseman Jason Garrison, who sat out with an undisclosed injury.  Garrison was hurt on Saturday against the Islanders, missing out on the game against the Penguins.  Garrison has been good for the Bolts this year, picking up 17 points in 35 games, but the injury held back on the half a point-per-game pace, which he was likely due for a point.

Troy has been keeping the pace and trying to crack the top five here soon.  Troy will go into the break in 8th place, only 6 points back of the 3rd place race.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Week Eleven Newsletter

Well, look who is back in a big way.  It was a desperately slow start for Los Angeles Kings forward Anze Kopitar this season, as he came into the week with only 13 points in 28 games, but exploded for a 9-point week, nearly doubling his output for the year, in the three games in Week Eleven.  Kopitar was the clear winner of the Player of the Week nod and for good reason.

The Kings, as a whole, went 2-1-0 in the week, but Kopitar did manage to pick up at least a point in each game.  On Tuesday, it was an assist in a 5-2 loss to the Blues, Thursday was his big day, a goal and 4 assists in the second half of the home-and-home against St. Louis, winning 6-4, and then on Saturday, another 3 assists in a 4-2 win over Arizona.

This brings Kopitar's numbers up to 22 points in 31 games this season for the Kings, which still isn't where some of us would have had him projected, pace-wise, but with another couple big games, he may be able to find his way back to where he should be.

At the end of the week, the Slovenian olympian finished 98th overall in pool scoring, still well down from the draft position, 27th overall in the 2nd round, by Brenda & Seward.  Kopitar will still need another 9 quick points to be where his draft position would suggest him being at.

This nod for Brenda & Seward makes for back-to-back Player of the Weeks, which leads more into the next section, more than anything.

Of course, having the Player of the Week certainly helps your team's chances at heading up the Mover & Shaker on the Newsletter and it certainly did for Brenda & Seward, who also took full advantage of the Waiver Draft, a couple of weeks ago as well.

At the Waiver Draft, the pool's second duo had the 2nd overall pick, meaning they started Week Nine in 22nd place.  Thanks a couple of decent weeks and now one great week, they have already shot up the standings, finishing Week Eleven in 15th spot.  Without a doubt, they have taken the moving and the shaking to heart in the last few weeks.

It was a solid 32-point effort in Week Eleven for Brenda & Seward, which was led by Kopitar, of course, but followed by Henrik Lundqvist, who had 5 points.  Maple Leafs forwards Joffrey Lupul and James Van Riemsdyk each kicked in with 3 points each, while five other players had a couple of points each.  Three players finished with donuts in their active lineup, which goes to show you how much scoring they were able to spread out in the week.

With finishing the week in 15th, the duo become the lowest team to come away with the Mover & Shaker, but I don't think that really does them any justice, as they have been the quickest team up the ladder over the last couple of weeks, especially with two Player of the Week nods already.  How high can they possibly go?

Ask anyone in this pool... I don't think anyone would believe it to be wise to base your team on the current and past roster of the Calgary Flames.  Well, that was what Leo had done and the current lineup of the Flames and Leo's side are running similar courses through the season and I don't think that is by coincidence.

Leo's team got off to a pretty good start, hanging in the top 10 for a couple of weeks early on, but slowly, the team started to fade away and since both of his goaltenders are also current Calgary players, they've stopped winning and now the drop is on.

In Week Eleven, Leo's team finished with only 14 points and 1 goal, taking the Basement Dweller on the tie-breaker against Dale B., who managed 4 goals, dropping his side down to 19th place in the pool, being 14th back in Week Nine.  It's a pretty tough tailspin to pull out of.

If you're looking for a positive, one of his non-Flames alums did do well for him this week, as Brent Seabrook picked up 5 points in Chicago, but that's where the good news kind of stops.

TROPHY TALK

It was kind of nice not talking about any of the money teams in the first few sections of the Newsletter, it was quite refreshing.  Of course, there is an entire section devoted to the money teams and the trophies, but that's okay too.

The top three didn't change any in the week, finishing the same way as it did at the end of Week Ten.  Kristy & Don's lead at the top grew slightly to 26 points over Grant S., who dropped 7 points to Tony, who is still sitting in 3rd place.  Stacey M. jumped up to 4th place in the week, while Dale C. and Clayton each dropped back a bit, but stayed somewhat close.  We're still going to have a race for 3rd place, it would seem.

It should come as no surprise that Brenda & Seward now hold the lead in the second segment, now up to 66 points through the first two weeks of the year, 9 points up on Kristy & Don and 10 points up on Wilton, who is quietly doing well to start the middle frame.

For the Olli, Benson continues to dominate the race, opening up a 19-point difference between himself and 22nd place.  He has had absolutely no luck at all and only picked up 18 points in Week Eleven.

Benson also has a firm grip on the Jordan, only bettering a couple of teams in the games played department by one, so he really isn't making up much ground there either.  Wyllie is the closest to him right now, 24 games away and Wyllie has had players playing.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

What a poor week we just had!  Week Eleven stunk, which meant that there were not quite as many points to be had.

The NHL schedule had two more games in Week Eleven than it did in Week Ten, but the pool collected less points.  This past week, the pool, as a whole, didn't collect 500 or more points, which meant that we were collecting less than 10.5 points per game.

Average numbers of skater games and goalie minutes were down, as injuries started to escalate a little bit and there were a number of backup goalie starts that no one had picked up in the Waiver Draft, namely Cam Talbot of the Rangers or Antti Raanta of the Blackhawks, each picking up shutouts on Sunday.

Thanks to the Christmas week, the NHL schedule will drop down to 32 games and I think there will be another drop off in scoring, as teams possibly rest a couple of weary bodies and some players also start thinking about going home to their families for the week.  Although, I don't really have a basis for that argument, especially looking at the numbers from last year, as scoring did go up in the Christmas week... maybe the goaltenders are the players to blame, as they think about going home to their families, more than keeping pucks out of their net.

An interesting statistic that I keep track of inadvertently and remains somewhat interesting is the number of players that take to the ice for NHL action in a season.  In the 2014 season, 982 players/goalies took to the ice for at least one appearance last season... not even to the halfway point of the 2015 season, we've already seen 838 players/goalies.  With the number of injuries and illnesses already this season, I am curious to see if that number goes up this year.

WINNING EVERY WEEK

And then there were five in the survivor pool (which I'd like to remind everyone, doesn't pay anything).  Scott failed to pick up a win from either Ben Bishop (injury) or Alex Stalock (backup), which means he's out of the race.

Allan had 2 wins last week, Brenda & Seward had 2 wins, Clayton had 3 wins, Grant S. had 3 wins, as did Kristy & Don, which gives us our five teams still in.  None of which struggled to make it out of the week without a win, which means this could be a strong finish to the season here.

NEWS AND NOTES

One note that was missed on Sunday's large post was Nashville forward James Neal, missing out on the game against the Wild with an illness.  The Predators were quick to dispel any ideas that Neal may have been dealing with the mumps, which is important these days.  He is listed as day-to-day and questionable for Monday night's game against the Blue Jackets.

Grant S. has had quite a bit of good luck this season and if Neal has avoided the mumps, I would count that into the good luck column.

An undisclosed upper-body injury kept Chicago forward Brad Richards out of the line-up on Sunday, as his team took on Toronto to finish off the week.  The team is saying that Richards is day-to-day for now and they won't play again until Tuesday, so we'll likely find out more around then.

It wasn't a very good week for Clayton, who saw quite a few of his players hit the injury page in the week.  His spot in the money race is counting on healthy bodies.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Player Notes in the Draft (Dec 21)

One note out of the Buffalo/Colorado game last night, as Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers left the game early with a lower-body injury and is now thought to be questionable for Sunday's game in Boston.  The Sabres are now running into a plethora of injuries and illnesses, but most of the players that are getting affected, except for Myers, were either dropped or never picked in the pool.  Maybe now a string of losses for the Sabres won't be considered tanking.

Myers hasn't been nearly as productive as some may have hoped, only picking up 8 points in 32 games, scoring a point every four games.  The former rookie of the year belongs to Mike in the pool this year.

There was also a healthy scratch in the Buffalo/Colorado game, as the Avalanche sat defenseman Nick Holden for the first time this season.  The young defenseman had quietly found a place in the Avs lineup last season and has managed to find a few points this season, but the healthy scratch is a good indicator that he hasn't quite found the same stride as he did the year before, which could be one of the reasons why Colorado hasn't been nearly as good in the standings.

Grant S. hasn't exactly needed Holden to be outstanding to keep his 2nd place standing this year, but he arguably could have used a better start to the year, if he wanted to be closer to the chase for 1st place.

The Philadelphia Flyers amazingly found enough offense to make up for an injured player on Saturday night, giving the Maple Leafs a 7-spot on the scoreboard at home, which has to sit poorly on the home side.  The Flyers got the win, despite not having their number one goalie, Steve Mason in net.  Mason was hurt in practice at the end of the week, taking an upper-body injury of some sort, which has forced him to stay home, while the team is on this current road trip.  The updates have been few and far between, but that's what we know so far.

This would be considered a missed start for Allan, who has Mason in this year's edition of the pool.  Mason has been less than okay this year, 6 wins, 1 shutout and 2 assists for 16 points, picking up less than a point for every 60 minutes on the ice.

The Montreal Canadiens received a bit of good news before playing against Ottawa last night, as Lars Eller returned from his upper-body injury and Max Pacioretty was deemed good to go after leaving the ice the game before against the Ducks on Thursday.  The nature of Pacioretty's injury was never disclosed, but it wasn't considered major, to which his return to the ice confirmed.

This was good news for Stacey M., who has both players on her roster and her team is climbing up the standings in Week Eleven.  Her side went into Saturday as the Mover & Shaker of the week through Friday night and by the look of things, it all continued the right way for her team.

It was a trip up to the press box for Florida's Jimmy Hayes on Saturday night, as the Panthers took on the Penguins in Pittsburgh.  Hayes got off to a decent start to the year, but with the Panthers slowing down on offense and winning games, Hayes has certainly gone with that trend.  Hayes has 13 points in 23 games this season, but could certainly do a little bit better.

Hayes was a Waiver Draft pick-up for Wilton this season and has only seen 1 goal in five games since his pick-up.  Wilton isn't very far back in the standings at this point, but could certainly use some help moving forward.

A couple of key defensemen were put on the Injured Reserve for the Penguins before their game against the Panthers on Saturday, as Christian Ehrhoff was put on with a lower-body injury and an undisclosed injury put Paul Martin on the list as well.  Both players will miss three games, including the game against Florida, before they are eligible to return.  The details for both players have been sketchy, at best, so it is hard to say whether or not they will be ready to return when they're eligible.

These are injuries to two teams that are in the bottom half of the pool, so there isn't a great deal of threat to the money race at this point in the season.  Brian has Ehrhoff and Stacey C. has Martin this year and they'll need to get back into the top half of the standings before they make a big mark.

The New York Rangers welcomed back Derick Brassard back to their line-up on Saturday night, as they took on the Hurricanes, which meant that someone had to come out of their lineup and that someone ended up being Lee Stempniak, who had been a healthy scratch from time to time earlier in the year.  The Rangers seem to want to stay fast in their lineup, so they certainly added some better skating by taking some of their aged legs out of the lineup.

Brassard going back in was good for Scott, while Stempniak coming out was bad for Leo, in terms of pool transactions.  This is another pair of teams that haven't fared all that well in the season, also sitting in the bottom half of the pool standings.  Both teams could work their way back up, but they'll definitely need more skater games to do so.

A couple of big returns in the Chicago lineup on Saturday night, as their number one goalie Corey Crawford returned to the crease and their number one defenseman Duncan Keith returned to the blueline, but neither helped the team earn a W, as they dropped a shootout decision to the Blue Jackets.  Crawford had missed the last few weeks with a lower-body injury and Keith missed one game with an unspecified illness.

Returns are good, even if they don't get points right away, at least they'll be on the ice to get points going forward.  Dale C. and Clayton each had a player come back in this post and they'll need them, as they are both on the outside looking in on the money, having been leapfrogged earlier in the week.

The stomach virus that took out Darcy Kuemper of the Wild may have jumped over to Mikael Granlund, as he was a late scratch for Minnesota last night for their game against the Nashville Predators.  Granlund missed out on a bit of a shooting match with the Preds, as the Wild dropped a 6-5 overtime game, a game where there were many points to be had and Granlund is the type of player that could have lifted Minnesota to a win.  He's day-to-day with the bug.

It hasn't been a great week for Stuart, who saw his fourth player be added to the injury list with this post.  This doesn't look like it will be a major problem, but Stuart is in the thick of the top 10 race, just sitting on the outside, thanks to some tie-breakers.

One more scratch of note, as the Maple Leafs sat defenseman Jake Gardiner for the loss against the Flyers.  The 7-4 loss seemed to prove that some of the struggles that the Leafs may have been happening were not Gardiner's fault, as they key cog to the blueline disappeared and so did the rest of the defense.  I would have to think that the coaching staff will be looking at that move closely for their next game, tonight in Chicago.

If I was Mike, I would be hoping that Gardiner gets traded for a fresh start somewhere else, since Toronto hasn't been too kind to him or his potential.  Gardiner would fetch a lot and would likely put up some numbers elsewhere, which would definitely improve Mike's 13th place standing.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Jackets Lose Jenner Again

It was supposed to be a season where Boone Jenner was going to make a name for himself with the Columbus Blue Jackets, but the 21-year old forward has seen more than his fair share of bad luck and that string of unfortunate events continued with a stress fracture in his back and he'll now be expected to miss 1-to-2 months.

Jenner had already missed some time this season with a broken hand, which gave him a late start to the regular season and now a stress fracture in his back will really limit his time with the big club this season.

There wasn't much word on how the injury or the diagnosis came about, it almost seemed to pop up out of nowhere on Saturday morning.  A very unexpected turn of events.

In 20 games played this season, Jenner has 6 goals and 6 assists and he worked his way up to 263rd in pool scoring, at the time of this injury post.

At the original draft in September, Tony took the Jackets up-and-comer in the 10th round, only to drop him in the Preseason Waiver Draft, when word came down that he had broken his hand.  Tony then came back around to Jenner at the Week Nine Waiver Draft, re-acquiring him to boost his line-up, picking up 3 points in five games in the process.  Unfortunately, that's where the fun will stop in this second segment, but the timing may be right for a third segment return.

Tony goes into Saturday's action in Week Eleven in 3rd place, 25 points back of 2nd, 7 points up on 4th.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Severson Out to a Fractured Ankle

An unlucky set of circumstances has halted a very good rookie season for New Jersey defenseman Damon Severson, as his top flight freshman year has been hindered by a fractured ankle.

It is believed that the injury will cost the 20-year old about 4-to-5 weeks on the shelf, which will have its blow softened a bit, by a somewhat lighter schedule through the holidays, but no one wants to be spending the holidays in a walking boot.

Of course, this is another one of those shot-blocking injuries, where players are making some great sacrifices for their side to win, but they do end up being very costly as well.  Since the injury is in the ankle, instead of the foot, there are some definite structural concerns, more so than if he was suffering from a hairline fracture in his foot.

Severson got off to a really good start to the season, but just before the Waiver Draft, he did start to cool down a bit and after the player swap, he really hadn't shown much in the way of offense.

In 33 games this season, Severson has 4 goals and 8 assists, but Grant K. activated him in Week Ten, where since the draft, he had only picked up 2 assists in five games.

Currently, Severson ranks 47th among pool defensemen in scoring and he's certainly getting his name out there as a player to watch in the near future.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.