The Daily Puck: Happy Boxing Day

The Daily Puck
by Kevin King, RotoWire Writer

- Hope everyone had a terrific Christmas, and Happy Boxing Day to our Canadian friends!
- A slow trickle of news usually comes out the day after Christmas which makes it hard to project goalies and lineups. Making it worse, it's the last day of the week in most leagues, but keep an eye on our starting goalie grid, and check back in the comments below for the most recent lineup news and updates.
- It's an incredibly heavy slate today, and a crucial day in those weekly leagues so let's dig in!

Toronto (Jonas Gustavsson) vs. New Jersey (Martin Brodeur), 7:00 p.m

Toronto injuries:

Mike Brown (LW) - Out four-to-six weeks with broken finger
Jean-Sebastien Giguere (G) - Out two weeks with groin injury

New Jersey injuries:

Jacob Josefson (C) - Out indefinitely with hand injury
Matt Taormina (D) - Suffered setback in recovery from ankle injury and no timetable has been made for his return
Mark Fraser (D) - Cleared to resume practice after fracturing his right hand in October, but is not closer to returning to game action
Mattias Tedenby (LW) - Missed Thursday's game with food poisoning, but should be back on the ice Sunday night against the Leafs
Zach Parise (LW) - Won't even be back on skates until March and could miss entire season
Bryce Salvador (D) - A concussion may force the Devils to shut Salvador down for the rest of the season

Pittsburgh (Marc-Andre Fleury) vs. Ottawa (Brian Elliott), 7:00 p.m

Pittsburgh injuries:

Jordan Staal (C) - Out; a timetable for his return should be announced early in the upcoming week
Mike Comrie (C) - Out indefinitely with hip injury
Arron Asham (RW) - Questionable after sitting out Thursday night's game against Caps with undisclosed injury
Brent Johnson (G) - Out for Sunday night and questionable for the upcoming week as he battles a minor groin injury

Ottawa injuries:

Pascal Leclaire (G) - Could possibly play Sunday night after sitting out on Thursday night with what is believed to be a minor ankle injury

Montreal (Carey Price) vs. NY Islanders (Dwayne Roloson), 7:00 p.m

Montreal injuries:
Andrei Markov (D) - Out for season with knee injury

Islanders injuries:

Mark Streit (D) - Out until February at the earliest with shoulder injury
Trent Hunter (RW) - Out indefinitely with MCL tear in his knee
Kyle Okposo (RW) - Out with shoulder injury and no timetable for his return despite being able to practice with the Isles
Doug Weight (C) - Out indefintiely with back injury
Matt Martin (LW) - Will play Sunday night as he returns from a two-game suspension
Mike Mottau (D) - Out for remainder of season with torn labrum in his hip
Rick DiPietro (G) - Out and on IR with knee injury and shouldn't be expected back until after New Year's Day. Only 11 years left on that contract!

Washington (Michal Neuvirth) vs. Carolina (Cam Ward), 7:00 p.m

Capitals injuries:

Jeff Schultz (D) - Out until early January with fractured thumb
Boyd Gordon (C) - Nearing a return from an undisclosed injury but unlikely to play Sunday night
Matt Hendricks (C) - Appears ready to return to the ice Sunday night
Tom Poti (D) - Questionable for Sunday after taking a stick to the head and exiting Thursday night's game in the first period

Carolina injuries:

Jiri Tlusty (LW) - Doubtful for Sunday night, but hopes to return before New Year's Day.

Tampa Bay (Dan Ellis) vs. Atlanta (Ondrej Pavelec), 7:00 p.m

Tampa Bay injuries:

Steve Downie (LW) - Out indefinitely with ankle injury
Mattias Ritola (C) - Out again Sunday night as he tries to overcome Meniere's disease
Mike Smith (G) - Out with knee injury
Brett Clark (D) - Probable but still sore after taking a puck where no guy wants to take a puck earlier in the week

Atlanta injuries:

Zach Bogosian (D) - Questionable as he battles several nagging injuries that forced him to miss Thursday night's game
Nik Antropov (LW) - Questionable for Sunday night with undisclosed injury

Columbus (Mathieu Garon) vs. Chicago (Corey Crawford), 7:00 p.m

Columbus injuries:

Derek Mackenzie (C) - Doubtful for Sunday night as he recovers from groin injury

Chicago injuries:

Marian Hossa (RW) - Out with lower body injury
Patrick Kane (RW) - Doubtful for Sunday night, but he's getting closer to returning from leg injury
Viktor Stalberg (LW) - Questionable; he has been cleared to play after suffering with the after effects of a concussion

Nashville (Pekka Rinne) vs. St. Louis (Jaroslav Halak), 7:00 p.m

Nashville injuries:

Matthew Lombardi (C) - Out; struggling to overcome concussion
Martin Erat (RW) - Questionable for Sunday night after leaving Thursday's game with Ottawa early with an upper-body injury
Steve Sullivan (LW) - Questionable after also getting injured late in Thursday's loss to the Senators
David Legwand (C) - Out for Sunday but could be back on the ice for the Preds as early as Tuesday

St. Louis injuries:

Andy McDonald (C) - Out as he battles to overcome concussion
Dave Scatchard (C) - Out three-to-five weeks with knee injury
David Perron (RW) - Out indefinitely as he also battles to overcome a concussion
T.J Oshie (LW) - Out indefinitely but skated briefly earlier in the week to test his injured ankle

Detroit (Jimmy Howard) vs. Minnesota (Niklas Backstrom), 7:00 p.m

Detroit injuries:

Pavel Datsyuk (C) - Out for at least a month after breaking his wrist and hand on Wednesday night
Mike Modano (C) - Out with that nasty wrist laceration, but recent reports say he could be back before the end of the regular season

Minnesota injuries:

Guillaume Latendresse (LW) - Out indefinitely as he rehabs from surgery to repair torn labrum in his hip as well as a sports hernia.
Nick Schultz (D) - Out with not concrete timetable for his return after suffering a concussion last weekend

Phoenix (Jason LaBarbera) vs. Dallas (Kari Lehtonen), 8:00 p.m

Phoenix injuries:

Ilya Bryzgalov (G) - Out for Sunday night with upper-body injury, and could miss all of the upcoming week as well
Taylor Pyatt (LW) - Out with no concrete timetable for a return as he recovers from getting knocked out in a fight with Pittsburgh's Deryk Engelland earlier in the week

Dallas injuries:

NO SIGNIFICANT INJURIES TO REPORT

Edmonton (Nikolai Khabibulin) vs. Vancouver (Roberto Luongo), 9:00 p.m

Edmonton injuries:

Shawn Horcoff (LW) - Out and will miss at least two months with a knee injury
Jim Vandermeer (D) - Out and on the shelf for a couple of weeks with an ankle injury
Ales Hemsky (RW) - Out with not firm timetable for a return, but has made recent progress recovering from his groin injury
Gilbert Brule (C) - Questionable for Sunday night's game after missing Thursday's game with the flu. One would think that with five days to recover from the illness he should be set to get back on the ice but he also has to battle the dog house of coach Tom Renney

Vancouver injuries:

Mason Raymond (LW) - Out; still at least two weeks away from returning from broken thumb
Sami Salo (D) - Out indefinitely with terrible achilles injury. Will not even resume skating until late January

Anaheim (Jonas Hiller) vs. Los Angeles (Jonathan Quick), 9:00 p.m

Anaheim injuries:

Jason Jaffray (RW) - Out until at least February after tearing ACL in left knee back in September
Aaron Voros (RW) - Out two-to-three more weeks with fractured orbital bone
Nick Bonino (C) - Probable for Sunday night after sitting out Anaheim's last game in Buffalo with a minor foot injury

Los Angeles injuries:

Scott Parse (RW) - Out until February at the earliest as he recovers from an injured hip labrum
Willie Mitchell (D) - Questionable for Sunday as he battles a lower-body injury that he sustained ten days ago
Matt Greene (D) - Cleared to play and probable for Sunday night after sustaining a head injury that was never classified as a concussion nearly two weeks ago

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Who's Hot

Henrik Sedin (C) Vancouver - Hank has two goals and four assists in his last two games for the Canucks, who have a pretty pathetic Oilers team coming into town Sunday night.
Brian Rafalski (D) Detroit - Rafalski has five assists over Detroit's last two games, and the old man is also on a five-game point streak for the Wings.
Jonathan Quick (G) Los Angeles - While Quick may not even be the hottest goaltender in Southern California, I'm sure he's owners are more than happy with his two starts so far this week, allowing only two goals in his two starts - a shutout win on Tuesday night and an overtime win on Thursday.

Who's Cold

Ryan Miller (G) Buffalo - The bad news gets worse for Miller owners, who have got to be frustrated by the lack of offensive support Miller has gotten this year. Buffalo's leading scorer, Derek Roy, is now out for the season so he's going to need to stand on his head even more than he has already at points this season.
Jason Arnott (C) New Jersey - Arnott's career is going out with a whimper in the swamp. He is a minus-5 over the last three games and is riding a season-high seven game pointless streak.
Andy Greene (D) New Jersey - After all of those seasons giving us boring playoff series after boring playoff series, and the Ilya Kovalchuk disaster, it's kind of nice to pile on the Devils a little bit, although it is strange to see them struggle defensively. Greene typifies those struggles, going without a point over the last 13 games; a timeframe that has also seen him post a dismal minus-12.

Recommended Pickup

Anthony Stewart (RW) Atlanta - Stewart has gone from being only in less than 25 percent of all leagues to being owned in almost half of all leagues in less than a week. He did have the nerve to not get on the scoresheet on Thursday night, but before that, Stewart had seven points (2 G, 5 A) in four games. Almost everyone can use help on the wings, so grab Stewart if he's still there in your league.