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.

Red Wings smoking, Vokoun coughs one up

Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Holmstrom seem to be clicking lately.

Datsyuk had a four assist night last night and has 2 goals, 12 assists in his last 5 games while both Zetterberg and Holmstrom are on streaks of their own.

On the other side, Vokoun in his third game back from injury coughed up two weak goals on 8 shots and was replaced by Mason early in the second period. If you have the Vokoun/Mason tandem and were looking forward to dropping Mason now that Vokoun has returned... hold that thought and Mason. With Mason's stellar play during Vokoun's injury you can expect to see Mason starting a fair number of games for Nashville, it won't be a true timeshare between the pipes but Mason is no longer strictly a backup until Vokoun reseats himself as the outright number one goalie.

If either Datsyuk or Zetterberg are on your leagues waiver wire snap them up quick. While they are both hot they have been slightly dissapointing this season but seem to be playing up to expectations lately. See if you can swing a trade for a currently higher scoring player (Brind'Amour for Datsyuk or Ray Whitney for Zetterberg?) and ride them out the rest of the season. It seems likely that at least Datsyuk and Zetterberg will continue to produce.

As for Holmstrom, he may be worth a waiver wire pickup depending upon your roster depth. In my case he is not worth it but if you've got a spot to burn ride the streak while it lasts, he has 15 points in his last 11 games with 9 goals in that span.