Buffalo has claimed Matt D’Agostini off of waivers and I’m interested. Not “grab him off the wire now” interested, but “watch and see” interested. He’ll finally get some ice time there, I’d think.

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Paul Martin update – broken tibia. Yep, we won’t see him until the New Year for sure. From a fantasy standpoint, I like the short-term bump for Letang, Maatta and Niskanen. Though from a PIT fan standpoint, it certainly hurts.

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If you’re looking for more fantasy hockey reading material, my article over at the Hockey News is on 13 players who have been excelling on home ice. Tomorrow I look at the road warriors.

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While there are still a few bugs left to cover in the Forum, I am hereby calling the “BETA” version complete. Please go and enjoy. The key bugs have been fixed and navigation is nice and slick. The last two weeks have created some negativity among some users, but in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t shut the forum down for a week and do the fixes that way. The fixes were done live, while you were still allowed to ask your questions (and help me with bug reports along the way).

So, as of Tuesday night, I declare the new forum ready to go. You can now embed video, quickly comment and like (i.e. “REP”) posts, navigate just the ‘latest activity’, look at the new posts or today’s posts. You can format your post easily (CTRL B to bold a word) and as long as you don’t adjust font size (still a known bug) you can change your signature now. Lots of fun! And to celebrate the launch, I’ll be answering questions all day and responding to every post I can get my hands on in there – as I’ve been doing for the last two days. Check it out.

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Figures that Jonas Hiller puts up a stinker two days after I give him props. Thanks Jonas. He had a 2-1 lead five minutes into the third period when he gave up four goals in seven minutes. It was going so well and then…boom. Bottom drops out. I would guess that means Frederik Andersen will win get the next shutout start.

Mathieu Perreault has one point in his last nine games. Still getting the ice time, but he’s been lost with Teemu Selanne showing his age and Jakob Silfverberg out. Selanne has one point in his last 14 games after having six in seven.

Silfverberg’s injury (broken hand) will keep him out until almost Christmas.

Anaheim line combos (courtesy of Frozen Pool – free):

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Six goals and Alex Goligoski can’t get in on any of that?

Actually, it was all the pluggers – Ryan Garbutt with three points, which gives him five in total. But at best he’s a 30-point guy. Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn were stymied.

For Seguin – that’s three games in a row without a point

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As Bob MacKenzie pointed out yesterday, TSN did not have NHL rights between 1998 and 2002, so they’ve been through this before. Hopefully they plan to step up coverage without showing games – they can still be a player.

My concern is – would Rogers pull a heavy on Canadian websites? I still want to show YouTube clips, etc. I give my full thoughts on the billion-dollar deal here in my section of the Forum.

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Zach Parise is out two to three weeks with a bruised foot. Mikael Granlund (UBI) is expected back tonight and I’m guessing he gets the bulk of Parise’s ice time.

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Paul Martin is having a pretty good season to follow up on his great one last year, but he’s out indefinitely with an undisclosed injury. Does that help? Undisclosed and indefinitely. Curious to see if this kickstarts Letang, or if Olli Maatta or even Matt Niskanen get on the board. My money is on Letang catching fire. Martin never took Letang’s power-play time, but Letang will push harder and shoulder more.

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Beau Bennett is out for 8-10 weeks with a broken hand that required surgery. He missed time earlier this month with a lower-body injury. I’m not ready to call him a Band-Aid Boy, but if he were to miss 10 games over something next season… then I’d be open to it. In the meantime, Jussi Jokinen will enjoy playing with the red-hot Evgeni Malkin and James Neal.

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Kevin Westgarth gets two games for this hit:

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Don’t underestimate the domino effect of Pavel Datsyuk‘s injury on Gustav Nyquist. It looks like Datsyuk will be out another week with his concussion and that means the Red Wings have one line – Nyquist’s. They’re going to key in on Nyquist – Zetterberg – Franzen because the alternative would be to key on Alfredsson – Abdelkader – Helm. Yeah right.

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I’ve had a couple of notes about Goalie Post over the last week about “dropping the ball” and I want to explain – it’s not a guarantee. If a player, we’ll call him Josh H., steps on a puck during warmups and twists his knee – he’s not going to start despite what we say, and there isn’t enough time to fix it. If a player, we’ll call him Jimmy H…or Jonas H…is throwing up in the hall during warmups and can’t go, this is seconds before game time. And last night’s switcheroo of Dan Ellis – we caught this at 8:07, two minutes too late. The Dallas beatwriter didn’t report it, the Ducks beatwriter reported it at 8:01. We turned it around and got the email out within six minutes. Later I found out that at 7:36 the Dallas team Twitter account announced it was Ellis. So we goofed. I’ll eat that one. Full responsibility. One miss that was our fault (we could have given you 20 minutes warning) and on the heels of the two “flu bugs” and the “step on puck” it looks bad. But I swear – Goalie Post is awesome. The gentlemen watching over it are awesome and we can all count on it.

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Still with goalies – Ilya Bryzgalov gets his first start as an Oiler Thursday when they play the Predators. Great team to make a debut against, since the Preds don’t score.

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Shane Doan is considered day to day with his LBI, but the Coyotes have not ruled him out for tonight’s contest. Doan has nine points in his last seven games.

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A lot of people as my thoughts on Nikita Kucherov, especially in the forum (don’t forget – I’m fielding questions, get on it – go to the Dobber’s Take section). He’s going to be a star. He reminds me more and more of Alex Radulov. As long as he doesn’t take off for the KHL like Radulov, he’ll be a stud. I wouldn’t be shocked if he was sent back down soon – but I also wouldn’t be shocked if he made the team next year and was a Calder nominee.

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Joffrey Lupul strained his groin last game and he is probably going to miss at least three more. Look for him Tuesday December 3rd at the earliest. In the meantime, Mason Raymond will probably get another look on a scoring line.

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Dallas – three goals, 53 seconds. The third goal was horrible – Hiller should have come out and swatted that away: