Despite being in the AHL, Grachev will not be allowed by the Rangers to go to the WJC. Russia wants him, Rags say “no”. That indicates that they have plans for him to join the big club.

Those of you in a fantasy baseball keeper league – Snyder has just posted the Top 150 hitters to own, over on DobberBaseball

With Valiquette out, Chad Johnson may have played his way into a backup role. Our goalie expert Justin Goldman is holding a discussion here.

Team Canada’s junior roster for the selection camp can be found here. To me the biggest omission is Joe Colborne.

Interesting tidbits – the Rangers have claimed Erik Christensen off of waivers. He has 55-point potential if he can ever find the right fit – as well as consistency. The Rags also placed Valiquette on waivers. Atlanta put Noah Welch on waivers.

Alexander Semin is probably going to be back in the lineup tomorrow, according to Tarik El Bashir’s Twitter.

According to Mike Heika, the Stars have juggled their lines. Their main line is still together, but Wandell is off the Richards line. No, Neal isn’t on it – Steve Ott is. Neal will play with Modano and Lehtinen, while Ott is with Richards and Eriksson.

Kyle Chipchura has been traded to the Ducks in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick. This won’t have any fantasy impact other than to maybe – maybe – remove Artyukhin from the second line for a little while. It also keeps Sergei Kostitsyn on the Habs after some injured players return.

Mike Knuble is back practicing, but no contact. I’d give him another week to 10 days, but that’s just my own non-medical training guesstimate. If Ovechkin is hurt beyond his suspension, you may see Knuble rushed though.

A great observation from ziggy in the comments below – Randy Jones has eight points in 10 games for Los Angeles. In the last eight games, he has seen at least 19:52 of ice time. Just two of those points came on the power play. In that same span, Doughty has five points with three on the PP. I think Jones looks like a good one who will get a point every two games. However, he is also a band-aid boy who may not play 60 this year. So buyer beware.

With Leafs’ goaltender Gustavsson in the hospital overnight (he’ll be out later today), Joey MacDonald will be the man for Thursday’s game. Ironically, Gustavsson gets credit for the shutout based on five saves, whereas MacDonald made 18 saves with nothing to show for it. That’s because Gustavsson left the game up 2-0. According to this, Gustavsson got a shutout last night. I’m sure they’ll fix.

Ovechkin’s two-game suspension will cause him to miss Thursday’s game against FLA and Saturday against PHI. He is eligible to return Monday against TB – assuming his knee is okay (it seems to be).

Nikita Filatov – 10 points in six KHL games. This is a league where scoring leaders hover around the point-per-game mark, with the very top reaching maybe 1.30 – and Filatov is making this league his ‘bitch’. Hitchcock must look at this stuff, shake his head, make a ‘tsk tsk’ sound, and say “what a defensive liability”.

Gomez was back in action last night and he played with Travis Moen and either Tom Pyatt or Max Pacioretty. He’s not being eased back from injury, as he played nearly 20 minutes. No, it’s clear that the team considers Plekanec their top center now.

Heatley struck first with an assist last night. Michalek then scored a goal. Heatley trumped that with another assist, and then Michalek hammered it with another goal. The Sharks won the game, but the Sens benefitted most from the trade – last night, anyway.

Michalek has 15 goals and 20 points in his last 21 games. Career highs this year? Yep, he’ll get there.

Jamie Langenbrunner has 21 points in his last 19 contests. His career high is 69 set last year, and I think he’ll flirt with that number once again.

Michael Frolik is an excellent buy low candidate, but his price will go up quickly. With five points in his last five games, he has found his groove and although his current pace projects to 44, I think he’ll finish at 60.

Ryan Potulny has seen at least 15:30 of ice time over the last four games. He has four points in that span. With Hemsky out, that opens up a lot of ice time and now Potulny is getting chance. Worth a pick up? I think so – look for two points every three games for the forseeable future.

Matt Stajan has 10 points in 10 games – only being shut out of two of them. He is playing well with Kessel.

Steve Ott is at 13 games without a point (and a minus-9).

Back to Earth – Ryan O’Reilly has seven points in his last 17 games. Look for him to finish at around 42.

Back to Earth II – Anze Kopitar has just three points in his last nine games. He had 30 in 19 prior to that. I can’t believe that Terry Murray is trying everybody on the roster in Ryan Smyth’s spot, except for Dustin Brown – the guy who is most like Ryan Smyth and who has played so much with Kopitar over the past two years.  It’s idiocy, I don’t know how else to describe it.

Brown, incidentally, has just three points in his last nine games, too. As soon as Murray puts those two together, I am confident that the problem will be solved.