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Early word on Pacioretty: broken vertebrae – also seeing reports that it is two vertebrae in his neck (C4 and C5) and a “severe” concussion. His career is in jeopardy.

The Senators signed undrafted WHLer Wacey Hamilton. He has some upside as a fourth-line agitator, but is probably a long shot to stick. He was in Colorado’s training camp last fall and was released. Then again – his coach in Medicine Hat is Cory Clouston’s brother, so he’ll get a longer look than most players in his situation.

Seven of Lars Eller’s 15 points have come in his last nine games. The talented Dane is finally showing us a preview of what he can do.

The Blues have activated Jaroslav Halak from IR and sent down Ben Bishop. Halak will play against Columbus.

Guy Latendresse played 10 minutes in his return to the Minnesota lineup after a lengthy absense. He is one to watch, once he gets a few games in to get his timing back.

If Luca Sbisa’s worth four years and $8.7 million at this point in his unproven and thus far unimpressive NHL career, then Shea Weber should be looking for 20 years and $743 million. That being said, Jeff Finger’s contract was still way dumber.

There is a chance that Derick Brassard will play on Wednesday. If so, then there is a chance that Derek MacKenzie’s fun ride on the top line is over.

AHL teams announced their Clear Day rosters yesterday, meaning these are the players eligible to play in the AHL postseason. Interesting names include Mats Zuccarello, Vladimir Zharkov, Michael Leighton, Michael Del Zotto, Linus Omark, Jonathan Blum, Steven Kampfer, OEL, Mikkel Boedker, Matt Calvert, Dustin Jeffrey. Full list here.

Leighton is an interesting one, as it means if the Flyers and the Phantoms each go deep and the Flyers need Leighton… well I’m not sure how that works – the Phantoms only have two goalies on their Clear Day list…hypothetically speaking, of course, since the Phantoms are horrible.

Islanders prospect Nino Niederreiter was the WHL player of the week after notching seven goals and nine points in four games for Portland. I believe he’ll be an NHLer next year in that 40-point range.

Dustin Byfuglien is day-to-day with a LBI. He will miss tonight’s game. Since he did terrible when Enstrom was out of the lineup, I can’t help but think that Enstrom will also see goose-eggs without the Big Buff. Just a hunch.

John-Michael Liles left last night’s game with what appears to be a leg injury. The perfect ending to an injury-riddled campaign for the Avs.

My THN article yesterday on Bryan Bickell.

Sergei Kostitsyn is still getting 18/19 minutes per game, but is being held scoreless. While his brother Andrei is on fire, Sergei is pointless in seven and has just one point in 10 contests. Didn’t I write the opposite statement about a month ago?

Patric Hornqvist only played 10 minutes, but I imagine that is related to the illness that caused him to miss practice the day before.

With Tomas Vanek out with the flu, Luke Adam got into the Buffalo lineup. He was minus-2 in seven minutes of ice time, so obviously not as impressive as some of his earlier games. He’ll be full time next season though. Mark Parrish also got into the lineup, but was pointless in 10 minutes.

Hey! Andrej Sekera finally stopped scoring two points!

James Neal picked up his first goal as a Penguin and later added his first assist. As someone noted in the comments recently, he does indeed deserve entry into the Windex Wonders club.

Chris Kunitz was back in the lineup, here were the line combos for PIT: Staal with Kunitz and Kennedy; Letestu with Neal and Kovalev; Jeffrey with Dupuis and Cooke

Max Pacioretty took a nasty hit from Zdeno Chara and was down and out. He was later moving all extemities at the hospital. Clip of the hit below.

Corey Crawford finally got the hook after pounding out eight straight wins. He allowed three goals on eight shots and was pulled after the first period. Just overworked. But Marty Turco shutting the door after that could see to it that Turco gets the next start, giving Crawford a bit of a rest.

So leave it to Craig Anderson to stop the mighty Devil train. In eight Ottawa starts, Anderson has allowed three goals once, four goals once, and the other six games he allowed one or zero.

Rookie Erik Condra posted his second two-goal game of his short (10 game) career. I would consider him for a short-term pickup, yes. He’s a promising rookie who I actually didn’t have ranked on my prospects list, but Thursday’s update will show him around 150ish.

More to come in the morning…

Whoa – this hit is ugly. Just a wicked head-slam into the pole. Should Chara be suspended?