Thursday, April 07, 2016

Morning Player Notes in the Draft (Apr 7)

Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse left last night's game against the Canucks after taking a puck up high, after he tried to block a shot with his stick and the puck traveled upwards towards his face/throat area.  The 21-year old has had a rocky year, playing 68 games and only scoring 2 goals and 9 points,  Nevertheless, it was a good learning experience for the kid, as the team is growing around him, he was showing that he does have the chops to stick around, if the Oilers have the patience for him.

It may have been a little early in his career to make him into a good hockey pool pick, but it wasn't a terrible gamble either, as he does have a lot of upside.  John S. took that gamble, but ended up with the worst pick in the 7th round.

Just in time! The Tampa Bay Lightning have announced on Thursday morning, that they have recalled forward Jonathan Drouin from the AHL, with only a couple of games left on the regular season schedule.  Drouin was exiled to the minors at the beginning of the calendar year, which included a holdout for a trade around the deadline, so his playing days were really cut short at the NHL level and there is no guarantee that he'll figure into the Lightning lineup immediately either.

I'm not entirely sure why Allan sat on Drouin through the second Waiver Draft, things were not looking too rosy on his side at the time.  Nevertheless, what's done is done.  Allan won't finish any higher than 15th this season, which may have only been marginally improved, if he made the switch anyways.

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