Hockey News FPL – how the top-scoring d-men are suddenly getting younger… http://tiny.cc/gkYLN

Phil Kessel will make his Leafs debut tonight. Matt Stajan and Jason Blake will be his linemates to start. His presence will likely see Tlusty sent back down. As for Stajan – it all depends on the chemistry. This is boom or bust. Wilson believes that Stajan has the best toolbox for playing with Kessel. We shall see…

The ‘Yotes have recalled Mikkel Boedker from the AHL. He had just four points in seven games there. While I’m looking at it, may as well point out a few notables – Kyle Turris has 10 in 12, Tikhonov has five in 12, McLean has nine in 11 and Porter has 10 in 10. Frankly I think Porter – who is the eldest of that group and has the nicest numbers – should have had priority.

Dobber Nation – it turns out we would not have gotten it up even had I not moved. The producer got hammered with H1N1 – ouch! So he’s been down for the count for over a week. So what we have are four very good interviews and they are all uncut and in pieces – and now they are dated. Walker has another, new interview in his back pocket and a couple other ones scheduled and we are probably going to have a new “special” episode out in the coming days – we’ll probably clean up and release the other stuff as “bonus” material. More details to come.

Scott Hartnell kicked off the year with five points in 10 games. He now has 11 in 12. Just wanted to cite a clear example of how quickly a player’s numbers can turn around this early in the season. Nathan Horton is another one – three points in nine games and a lot of people in this community were talking “drop”. He now has 10 in 12 and is back on track.

Since he was a healthy scratch for five games in a row, 25-year-old Jeff Tambellini has six goals and eight points in his last eight games – actually, they all came in the last six in which the Isles are undefeated in regulation. He is definitely a solid short-term option.

The word on Andy McDonald is that he did not suffer any serious injury when he went head first into the boards. I don’t see him dressing next game, but it sounds as though he will be back in three or four. He has just a point in his last six games.

Patrik Elias is probable for tomorrow’s contest and almost certainly will play Friday. He has yet to play this season due to a groin injury.

Martin Havlat vs. Marian Gaborik. Havlat has one goal, seven points and minus-9. Gabby has …uh… 11 goals, 19 points and is a plus-7. So who’s ahead?

Setoguchi will not be in the lineup (probably) Wednesday, even though the Sharks sent McGinn and Couture down yesterday. His injury is undisclosed, of course.

The Devils assigned Matt Halischuk to Lowell. He only played about 65 minutes this entire season for the Devils, so don’t be alarmed that he was pointless in seven. Still just 21, he’ll be back. In two years he’ll be a second liner – which is about his peak.

Ovechkin is “week-to-week” according to TSN. It could be worse for Team Russia – we could be in January instead of November (Markov, Gonchar, Kovalchuk, Malkin, Ovechkin…). Obviously, his absense will hurt Backstrom. Morrison will suffer as a result of the domino effect.

Eric Staal has missed one game in his career. He is set to miss several more thanks to a UBI. I’d like to say that Brind’Amour will fill in nicely, but he won’t. If anyone does it, it will be Cullen.

The earliest Spezza (UBI) will return will be this weekend. The team has scored three goals in two games without him, and nobody has benefitted from any added ice time as of yet.

Still on the subject of star players missing chunks of time, Simon Gagne will be out 6-8 weeks as Angus mentioned yesterday. Claude Giroux was up to 16 minutes of ice time last night and potted a pair of points. I didn’t see the game, so I don’t know if he was moved to the wing, but his 2:25 of PP time was a slight bump.

JVR led all Flyers with 5:20 of PP time. That’s more than Carter or Richards.

Matt Carle was without a point in five of his last seven games. So even though there is a three-point game in there, I wonder if that’s a signal for a slowdown. His ice time is well over 20 minutes, but I have to question his mere 1:59 of PP time last night. Coburn and Timonen combined for 10 minutes of PP time.

Kopitar has five three-points games so far. He’s 15 games into the season.

It’s all coming together for the Isles – the team is 4-0-2 in their last six.

I had some ramblings typed up late last night….but had to leave them before posting to get the baby. Of course, the computer decided to install updates and reboot – and I had my notes on “notepad”, so they weren’t saved. Lesson learned…

James Wisniewski got suspended for two games for this big hit on Shane Doan. No penalty was called, but he was forced to fight Keith Yandle right after it, and Doan later in the game.