Buffalo has recalled Luke Adam for today’s game. Word is that Rob Niedermayer is out. Adam has had an awesome pro debut so far and was the first AHL player of the week. He is the only top forward prospect in the system with any size, so I really recommend owning him in a keeper league. The points won’t come at the NHL level for a couple of years though.

Carolina has recalled Jiri Tlusty, his conditioning stint is over. Look for Dalpe or Bowman to be sent down within a few days.

Carey Price had another strong game for the Habs. With each win, he eases the mind of his fantasy owners, who were more than a little antsy towards the end of last season. He’s started all eight Montreal games this season, so you’re gonna get more starts out of him than you thought for 2010-11. At least, that’s how it looks.

Andrei Kostitsyn is tied for the team lead in scoring for the Habs.

Andrei Markov should be back in the lineup this weekend, per several sources. His presense will help, not hinder, PK Subban.

Subban, by the way, has four points in his last five games now.

Kyle Turris scored for the fourth time this season. Actually, he scored for the fourth time out of Phoenix’s last four goals. I was reminded on Twitter last night that Doan’s suspension could be an influence. After all, it’s one less offensive guy ahead of him on the depth chart. Now he’s shown enough to make it hard to get bumped back down the depth chart again. Tip of the hat to ‘Dean Youngblood’ for the thought. And you can also add Martin Hanzal’s absense as another factor to freeing up more ice time.

Mathieu Garon is 2-0-0 this season, with 1.50 and 0.942 numbers. Mason is the golden boy though. Even a ho-hum start won’t lose his position as No.1.

Columbus forward Kyle Wilson scored his first career NHL goal. The 272nd overall pick in 2004 has bounced around the AHL, but has finally made an NHL squad, though he’s still more of a reserve guy.

The Flyers’ scoring lead is a three-way tie between Mike Richards, Danny Briere and Ville Leino.

Dmitry Chesnokov is reporting that Evgeni Artyukhin has signed to play in the KHL.

With six goals, Rene Bourque earned himself NHL player of the week.

Jaro Halak was the second star, once again one-upping Mr. Price (I think the two of them will have numbers surprisingly close by the end of the season – very interesting battle-within-a-battle)

Stamkos, the machine, is the third star of the week. How he can be better than he was last year, I don’t know. But he’s doing it.

The last time Nik Zherdev played in Columbus, he had three points for the Rangers in a 3-1 win. Philly played Columbus last night… and he did manage three shots on goal, but was only given 11:41 of ice time and zero PP time.In my books, Laviolette made a mistake there. If you own Zherdev, keep him on your bench and hope for an injury to someone in the top six. If you don’t already own him – then don’t go out and acquire him. This is not a ‘buy low’ situation here. Too much risk.

My THN column out later this morning goes over all the big-name slumpers in the NHL and whether they are “buy low” or “steer clear”.

Drew Doughty has been out with a minor concussion and was progressing well… but suffered a setback yesterday. He has now been placed on IR. Damn concussions…

Are you in Office Pools pool managing site? I have a message from them that they want me to pass along to you regarding their move to a new site from the classic site over at officepools.com:
“We had to move forward with the new site because there is no one who can run the Classic site. The person who was running it has decided he didn't want to work with the Officepools team other than on his own terms. Unfortunately, his terms were unreasonable. We want to improve the site and grow the company, he doesn't. We are sorry the transition to the new site has been less than ideal. We are working hard to make adjustments and improvements, it will just take some time.
The site will get there.
Thanks for patience, Rich
Officepools.com
I can be reached at richard@officepools.com”

My personal experience with the site is that within a week I was comfortable with the look and feel of it. My only issue is the sort functionality – with Classic I would sort a team by total points, and that sort would stick as I click through the teams. Now it makes me re-sort each time a click a team, which is a pain in the ass. But they assure me that it is on their list of things they will do. I get the feeling that these guys are working around the clock on getting this site absolutely right. And I think we’ll be happy with the result. My .02

This is hedging my bets – thanks to commenter Ken Shultz yesterday re: Varlamov vs. Neuvirth in the Dobber Fantasy Guide – Varlamov is flagged specifically in that spreadsheet as a “Band Aid Boy Trainee”. Also what the guide said about Neuvirth under “School of Block”, and the guide specifically says about Neuvirth – “you can expect him to play more games and post better stats than Varlamov.” (page 19)

However, my personal blurb indicated that I think Varlamov will be the better guy to own, and that an injury would be needed to remove him from power. In case  you haven’t noticed, an injury took him out right away. Then sickness took Neuvirth out and Varly had his job back…for a game and a half. Then Varly was hurt again and Neuvirth is back in.

I’ve been saying from the start people – an injury will determine who is No.1. It’s now settled. Neuvirth is No.1. And he will need to be hurt in order for Varlamov to be No.1 again. So if Neuvirth breaks his leg in December, don’t get upset with me in January because Varlamov is getting all these wins again!

I still think Varlamov is a great own. Do you know how this will eventually be settled? The same way that Nabokov and Kipprusoff was settled by San Jose – someone will be moved, Probably in a year and a half.

Interesting – Nashville prospect Linus Klasen was named AHL player of the week.

Dustin Brown was ejected for this hit on Antti Mietinen. Suspension?