Fantasy Hockey Scouts: Daily Dosage - Dec 8th, 2009

Dosage Express
A few Avs to look at... Eric Staal is heating up... Legace will stay in Carolina... Sid & Ovie return... we're TMZing it up with the Heidi Androl DUI   

Daily Diarrhea   

Chris Stewart remained hot with 2+1=3 last night and that gives him 5+8=13 in his last nine games.  He seems to have landed himself a spot on the top line with Paul Stastny, which is good work if you can get it.  Stew's shots seem a little low (he's only on pace for 128 this year), but he's been averaging almost three a game over his last nine games, so they appear to be picking up.

Joining Stewart and Stastny on the top line for the Avs is Wojtek Wolski and he's been burnin it up lately with 2+8=10, a plus-6 and 25 shots during a seven game point streak.

Peter Budaj recorded the shutout last night for the Avs and he's performed very admirably in his three starts (he's only given up four goals) since Craig Anderson went down injured.  We'd be very hesitant relying on this guy but guess it depends on how desperate you are.

Jarret Stoll has a little mini-streak going as he has points in four straight after a goal last night.  Stoll's a useful player as he's seeing decent ice-time and he's used quite a bit on the PP (10 PPP this year).

Eric Staal is starting to heat up, with two more assists last night, he has three of those in a row and has eight points (all assists) in his six games since returning from his UBI.

Alexei Ponikarovsky was 2+1=3 last night for the Leafs and he has four multi-point games in his last 10, to go along with six games without a point, and so that all averages out to 4+7=11 in his last 10.  So if you own him, then try to start him every other game.

Another assist last night for the Devils dman Andy Greene and he has six in his last seven games... so if you like light shooting dmen with virtually no PIMs who play on a Lemaire coached team (FYI, we don't)... then he's your guy.

Wings rookie Ville Leino has been a major disappointment this year as he's been seeing regular ice-time but has not been producing (two points in his last 20 games) and is a defensive liability (minus-9 in his last nine games) and so he was a healthy scratch on Sunday.

The Stars have called up dman Ivan Vishnevskiy from the AHL.  He hasn't been lighting the world on fire down there with 4+6=10 in 27 games this year but he's got skills and is worth keeping an eye on.

Carolina has put goalie Mike Leighton on waivers so it appears that Manny Legace will stay with the team as the backup when Cam Ward returns on Wednesday.  Neither will have much value as Ward will start pretty much all the games, barring another injury.

Injury Updates (see our Injury Updates page for a consolidated list of injuries):  

Sidney Crosby returned last night after missing one game due to a nagging groin injury.  He played a season high 26:32 and managed a goal, so he seems to be feeling ok.

Coincidently, Sid's nemesis, Alex Ovechkin, returned last night after his two game suspension slash knee injury... he had two goals, so you might want to consider getting him in your lineup, ya think?

We've been watching Randy Jones of the Kings lately and he had another assist last night but then left the game in the 2nd period... we're not sure why.  

Returning to action from the injured list last night was: Peter Mueller and Sergei Kostitsyn.     

Daily Distraction 

What's distracting us today?  Via TMZ... Heidi Androl, who is a regular on LA Kings broadcasts, was arrested for DUI on Monday.

 
This photo was apparently taken at the party before she got busted... not sure who the d-bag with her is, he's probably the one who gave her the booze.

No word yet if she went all Mel Gibson on the cops and called any of them Sugar-Tits... we'll get back to you if that's the case.