‘Minor’ news actually has big fantasy hockey impact – thoughts on Skinner, Hutchinson and more …

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Fantasy Hockey Geek is now back online!

Fantasy Guide updated as of Sunday night with latest cuts/injury info. Buy it here, or take a look at a special offer I have by going here. If you bought the Guide earlier and didn’t know about the special offer, not to worry – I will refund you.

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And now Budaj has been put on waivers, making Hutchinson the backup if you assume that the Jets will send Budaj down. Well that pretty much makes what I said about Hutchinson below …completely wrong. Ah well, I’ll leave it in for the thought process. Panicky Hutchinson owners can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Bryzgalov has been released from his tryout

Breaking – the Blue Jackets have signed Ryan Johansen to a three-year deal – $3M, $3M, $6M (big jump in final year is to set a minimum qualifying offer for next contract)

Final cuts are in and Anthony Duclair/ Kevin Hayes have made the team. In the case of Duclair, it will probably be for nine games before going back to junior – but of course that would change if scored four or five goals during that window. He scored four in four preseason games. Duclair is a must own in keeper league formats and is probably worth draft in the late rounds of one-year formats if you have a flexible waiver wire system.

The Rangers cut Hrvik, Haggerty, Lindberg, McIlraith

The Leafs cut Orr, McLaren, Holzer – and William Nylander

The Sabres cut Mikhail Grigorenko. Great camp, make no mistake. He had a great camp and put himself back in the ‘favorable prospects’ list. But the best thing for him is to become a star in the AHL. Which he will.

Rumor is that Zac Dalpe and Jake McCabe are other Sabres cuts

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And I’m happy to say that the home of Dobber Sports and Goalie Post is now comfortably on a new server. It has four times the RAM and double the processing power! Let me put it this way – if it wasn’t done, then there would more lags and crashes today (Monday being the busiest traffic day). Now I don’t think there will be. But I’m still taking measures – I hired a database expert who will optimize everything over the next couple of weeks and have the site humming.

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One update that was added to the Guide Sunday was Jeff Skinner. What a terrible break for his young career. From a fantasy standpoint things are also tough – because Skinner has dealt with a concussion that cost him a lot of time and now there is potential here for more of the same. Can he bounce back from a second one if it’s equally as serious? In the Guide I had him for 71 games because he’s an injury risk. With this latest news I dropped him down to 63.

Here is the hit to the head, courtesy of Matt Niskanen:

Can you imagine if Eric got hurt here? The Canes would be calling you and I up in their search for their next centerman.

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Today is the last day for teams to use waivers in order to be cap compliant. Teams must be cap compliant by Tuesday – and the waiver process takes 24 hours.

Players placed on waivers yesterday (names of interest only):

Kevin Porter, Landon Ferraro, DET

Anton Lander, Tyler Pitlick, EDM

Matt Lombardi, Michael Kostka, Steven Kampfer, Cedrick Desjardins, NYR – this is interesting because Lombardi signed a one-way deal and with the Stepan injury he seemed a lock to make the club. However, Kevin Hayes, Anthony Duclair, JT Miller, Oscar Lindberg, Jesper Fast and Marek Hrivik are all impressing and it’s looking like three of those kids are making this team.

Andrew Ebbett, PIT

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And training camp cuts (did not have to clear waivers) of interest:

Sven Bärtschi, CGY – Still not ready, but should be a midseason call up. I don’t trust his NHL-certainty enough to own him in any of my three keeper leagues. I don’t 100% rule him out as a future NHL star, but there are dozens of forward prospects I would prefer. You can research more on Bärtschi here.

Martin Marincin, Bogdan Yakimov, EDM – This was interesting in that the Oilers kept Jesse Joensuu, Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse. I had thought Marincin was a lock. Look for Nurse to at least get the nine-game trial – he has nothing left to prove at the junior level. Read up on Nurse here.

Jordan Weal, LA – Subject of Buschmann’s latest column (found here). He’ll crack the Top 185 prospects next update.

Nikolaj Ehlers, Josh Morrissey, Nic Petan, WPG