The Tennessean is reporting that Sully has now been skating with teammates. His progress is encouraging – his goal has been to get back into practices by Christmas. If he plays games again, it will likely start to happen in January, but don't expect him to play more than 30 of the last 40 games – and you would be lucky to ge 25 points from that, given his long layoff. (And by "Sully", I mean Steve Sullivan – not Patrick O'Sullivan. Steve will always be "Sully" in my books. I say this, because I was asked recently which one I meant)

Tom Gilbert was the immediate beneficiary of Lubomir Visnovsky leaving last night's game in the second (he was caught admiring a pass and was rammed head first into the boards). Gilbert played over 25 minutes and led the team in ice time.

Alex Steen saw over 19 minutes of ice time and top PP time. He played with Tkachuk and Boyes.

Cory Schneider stopped 28 of 31 shots in his NHL debut last night. The performance was certainly good enough to earn another start soon, but not dazzling enough to guarantee that it will be next game. So far, it looks like a split between he and Sanford for the next while.

Dustin Byfuglien played just under 12 minutes last night and did not see PP time. Quenneville is not the coach for him and do NOT expect a bounce back until he is on a new team.

The Big 3 are all white hot right now: Ovechkin has 22 points in his last 11 games, Crosby has nine in his last three, and Malkin has eight in three.

Despite all the injuries to Dallas wingers, Brunnstrom has still managed to go pointless in his last eight contests.

After eight points in 18 games, Shawn Horcoff has seven in his last four.

Ryan Clowe has an impressive 23 points this season and eight of those in the last four games. The most games he has ever played at any level is 74 and in the last three seasons he has never played 60 games. Investigate trade options if you own him. Don't wait until he tweaks something.

Jonathan Cheechoo missed yesterday with an upper body injury. He has 45 points in his last 88 games. We all know that his 93-point campaign was due to Thornton, but even without Thornton this guy should still be a legitimate 60-point player. He still has occasionaly hot spurts, but your guess is as good as mine as to whether he can ever become that star player again. One thing you should also keep in mind is that for three year running the Sharks stepped up their offense from January onward. In my leagues, I'm treating him as a 55-point player with upside, which means nobody will trade him to me because they have dreams of him breaking out of his funk. If I was confident he would break out of his funk… I wouldn't treat him like a 55-point player!

The streaky Ryan Malone has eight points in his last four contests.

Paul Stastny has just six points in his last 16 contests.

My man Avery vs. Chris Kunitz: