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Cam Fowler suffered an undisclosed injury at practice yesterday. Sounds like a leg injury but the team is calling it not serious. Fowler has missed 10+ games in each of the last two seasons and has only played in all 82 games once in his career. Injuries are starting to become a pattern so take notice.

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The Blue Jackets cut a few more players including Oscar Dansk and Simon Hjalmarsson. No surprises here.

Dansk is off to the AHL where I am very interested to see how he does. He was much hyped heading into the 2012 draft but he has lost a lot of steam after two middling seasons in the OHL. If he doesn't do anything in the AHL this year, I'm writing him off.

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David Perron is nursing some sore ribs. Doesn't sound like it will cost him any time.

Nikita Nikitin, on the other hand, will miss 1-2 weeks with an ankle injury.

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Zach Bogosian went down for the Jets yesterday. Lower-body injury, no word on the severity.

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With Derek Stepan injured the Rangers are going to experiment with Martin St. Louis at center. To be fair, it's still pre-season so this sort of experimentation is fine, even though it makes my head hurt.

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Five cuts for the Canadiens yesterday. No one of note. Things are looking better and better for Jiri Sekac to make the squad. DEEP sleeper for 40 points this season.

Speaking of deep sleepers, the Canadiens signed Drayson Bowman to a two-way deal for this season. I'm not expecting to see much of him this season, let alone any fantasy relevance.

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The Penguins released Daniel Carcillo yesterday. I guess they had enough goonery in their lineup. You'll have to look elsewhere for your PIM.

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The Stars and Julius Honka exploited a loophole to have Julius Honka play in the AHL this season rather than in the CHL. I'm all for it. As much as the CHL needs to keep as many star players as possible for as long as possible to improve the product and draw fans I'd rather see what's best for the player and in this case (and the case of many other top prospects) what's best for the player is to play at a higher level. Honka might not be good enough for the NHL yet but he's probably good enough for the AHL where he can learn to play against men.

It's also a sweet deal for the Stars because now they can keep better tabs on his development and provide direction to their AHL affiliate on how exactly to coach their young prospect. It's just a better way of doing business. Plus, it also keeps the door open for the Stars to call up Honka later in the season.

Don't think that Honka is upset to be playing pro hockey right away, even if it's as an AHLer. He'll only earn $70,000 skating in the AHL but that's still better than the next-to-nothing that CHLers get. What's more, it'll start the countdown clock towards free agency well before his counterparts who were sent back to junior.

Let's say Honka doesn't reach the NHL until he's 20. That'll leave him one year away from restricted free agency, instead of three had he gone back to the CHL.

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Dobber breaks down the top 50 defensemen to draft in one-year leagues.

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Make sure you check out our Pre-Season Experts Panel. Similar to our Playoff Panel, the Dobber Hockey writers have made their picks for the upcoming season. Things like top 10 scorers, best goaltenders, sleepers, our Calder favourite, etc. We also projected the 16 playoff teams. A fun read!

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Check out the first two parts of Sean McIndoe's NHL preview over at Grantland starting with the bottom feeders and the middle of the pack.

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Andrei Burakovsky continues to impress:

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You can follow me @SteveLaidlaw.