Goaile troubles

Quick note for Monday morning.

Frederik Norrena was injured in the second period of the Blue Jackets win over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night. The Blue Jackets are already playing without injured starter Pacal Leclaire who has been out since December 26th. Third stinger Ty Conklin finished the game with 15 saves. Conklin may be a decent short term pickup if you are in need of goalie wins. Columbus is on a 3 game win streak and have won 4 of their last 5. If Conklin stumbles be ready to drop him quick. Norrena is listed as day to day with the dreaded lower body injury and could be back as soon as Tuesday at Vancouver.

Ryan Miller has been off lately. The Sabres have lost 8 of 13 this month and Miller has been in net for 6 out of 10 losses. In those 10 games Miller has a 3.2 GA average and has let in 5 or more goals in two games. The Sabres will probably continue to go to Miller as Biron has not been much better this month. Biron has two losses in 3 starts and a 3.67 GA average in January. If you have better options you may want to sit Miller until he regains his form.

This is bad news for owners of Biron. With Millers shaky play the likelihood of the Sabres trading Biron at the deadline is pretty low.

On a better note, the Nashville Predators continue to be hot winning 10 of 12 in January. Both Vokoun and Mason are playing well right now. This is a mixed bag if you picked up Mason while Vokoun was on the IR. I wouldn't suggest dropping Mason anytime soon. The play of Mason makes one wonder if the Preds will be moving him at the deadline for some depth up front? That is certainly a nice little rumour to drop in your league if you are trying to trade Mason for depth on your roster.

Cloutier out, Mathieu Garon... is he worth a pickup?

Scanning the newswires I read that Dan Cloutier is likely out for the season after hip surgery today. This makes Mathieu Garon an interesting Fantasy Hockey pick-up.

For most of the season Garon has been the backup on a team looking at the playoff picture from the outside. This makes it likely that many fantasy leagues will see him available on the waiver wire.

I know he is available in my Yahoo Private League and with the way Tim Thomas is playing right now I am seriousely considering dropping Thomas as my third string keeper and replacing him with a starting Garon.

I wouldn't recommend him as a primary starter, but I can see his value over goalies like Norrena, Khabibulin, Budaj, Holmqvist etc. And once Phoenix remembers who they are he is also more valuable than their tandem of Curtis Joseph and Mikael Tellqvist.

If you have one of these guys as your second or third goaltender, I would suggest you make the swap before someone else beats you to it.