Posted by Sean Allen
The unspeakable has occurred. Martin Brodeur left Saturday night's game against Atlanta with a bruised right elbow. After making a sprawling stop at 6:38 of the second period, he quickly grabbed his elbow and skated straight off the ice. Brodeur later left the arena without commenting to the media.
Let's be perfectly clear about something before you go into your bookmarks and delete the links to your fantasy teams that have Brodeur on them: We don't know the severity of the injury yet. It was a bruised elbow that was bad enough to knock him out of the game. Coach Brent Sutter told the Associated Press he had no idea, either. "You're asking me something I'm not sure of," said Sutter. "I just don't know what to tell you. We'll see where Marty's at tomorrow and we'll see how it goes."
Brodeur has long been the epitome of hockey's iron man. Since the 1997-98 season, he hasn't played fewer than 4,000 minutes in a season. He has at least 30 wins in every season since 1995-96 and has been a fantasy No. 1 goaltender. The last time he was injured was in October 2005, when he missed six games with a knee injury.
Naturally, it's premature to start making long-term plans to account for any Brodeur absence, but if you own him you should already be looking for Kevin Weekes in another browser tab. Weekes would have decent fantasy value given regular duty on a strong Devils team. In deeper leagues, Scott Clemmensen should also be on your radar.
When Brodeur came out of the game, the Devils were up 3-0. They went on to win 6-1, giving Brodeur owners another victory. For Brodeur, that was win No. 544, seven shy of Patrick Roy's NHL record of 551. He was also working on career shutout No. 99, which would have inched him closer to Terry Sawchuk's record of 103.
Ice Chips
Lost in the injury to Brodeur was the fact that the Devils scored at least five goals for the second game in a row and the third time in five games. Zach Parise, of course, led the way with two goals, giving him nine on the season. Of note for fantasy players would be Johnny Oduya's three assists. Remember that he finished last season with 21 points in 44 games and was plus-25 in those games. … Not too much happened from a fantasy perspective in the Leafs' 5-2 win over the Rangers, except for Vesa Toskala getting another win. At 5-2-2, his record is the best part of his stat line so far, opposite of what we expected. The Rangers weren't banking on a big win by any means, starting backup goaltender Stephen Valiquette and watching him cough up all five goals in the third period. … Ryan Miller recorded his best game of the season in a 5-0 shutout win over the Alex Ovechkin-less Capitals. Tim Connolly made his season debut for the Sabres in the game as well, after missing the first 10 contests with hairline vertebrae fractures. He logged an assist and the second-most ice time among Buffalo forwards. Of course, you go out and pick him up. Just don't invest too much into him literally and emotionally. He'll look like a point-per-game player and then break your heart when he breaks something of his own. … Ovechkin, by the way, is expected to be back from his personal business in Russia by Tuesday. … You just never know when to start a certain player. Those of you in 0.8 percent of ESPN leagues that start Ethan Moreau, were rewarded with two goals, a plus-2, five shots and 19 penalty minutes. He shouldn't be owned in even the 0.8 percent of leagues that he is, but congrats on your little bit of luck for those who started him. … In net for the Oil was Dwayne Roloson, and he picked up the win in the 3-1 victory over Carolina. His stats are significantly better than those of Mathieu Garon and Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, and Roloson will continue to rack up some starts as he keeps playing like the veteran of the trio. He needs to be owned in more than 50 percent of ESPN leagues; he's owned in 1.8. In fact, pick him up and play him Sunday. … Tomas Plekanec is teaching patience when it comes to slow starts from expected stars. He started the year with a mere three points in October, but in Saturday's stunner over the Islanders, Plekanec and fellow linemate Alexei Kovalev each had two goals and two assists. Andrei Kostitsyn managed only one assist as the final member of the Habs' top line, but was a plus-4. Plekanec should have little trouble approaching the 70 points expected of him. He just started a little slow. … After losing 5-1 to Boston, the Dallas Stars have allowed 50 goals this season, seven more than the next-closest Thrashers and 28 more than the league-leading Wild. It's time to take Marty Turco out of your lineup and park him squarely on the bench regardless of how good the matchup looks. I'd say something about picking up backup netminder Tobias Stephan, but he coughed up five goals on Friday night. The Stars, obviously, have serious issues on defense. These things can take time to go away, and Turco will need time to become a starter again in fantasy. You have little choice but to hang on to Turco, as he was drafted as a No. 1, and you might not be able to swap him for Yann Danis at this point. … The Bruins continue to pay out value in spades. Phil Kessel scored his seventh goal of the year, Patrice Bergeron scored his third, Milan Lucic had 14 penalty minutes and Marc Savard had an assist and 12 PIMs. Biggest of all, Tim Thomas saved 35 of 36 shots and will finish the week in high consideration for the NHL's Player of the Week award: 3-1, 0.99 goals-against average, .970 save percentage. … When you stop nine Rick Nash shots, you know something is going right. Cristobal Huet stopped 48 of the 51 total shots from the Blue Jackets and all three in the shootout, to win the game and further complicate the timeshare in net with Nikolai Khabibulin. There isn't much to say about the pair, except keep playing both and stay on top of the Chicago dailies in hopes of knowing who will start when. … Derick Brassard had two assists for Columbus and now has 11 points in 11 games. He's done it very quietly, as he is still owned in only four percent of ESPN leagues. Scoop him up now. … What do Eric Godard, Chris Minard, Janne Pesonen, Rob Scuderi and Mike Zigomanis have in common? They were the only Penguins without a point in Pittsburgh's balanced 6-3 win over St. Louis. Miroslav Satan had three of those points and was back winging Sidney Crosby. It was a re-tooled Penguins offense after Ruslan Fedotenko left the morning skate with an injury and Pascal Dupuis was placed on the injured reserve. Satan was with Crosby and Maxime Talbot, and Evgeni Malkin was with Pesonen and Petr Sykora. … The Minnesota Wild played without Brent Burns (in addition to the already ailing Marian Gaborik and Owen Nolan) in their 3-2 win over Phoenix. The fact that the Wild are 7-2-1 is impressive enough. The fact that they've done it without Gaborik is amazing. Burns left the warmups with an "upper-body" injury. We'll see how that news pans out, but Burns is tough and can play through some injuries. … Two goalies playing better than the teams in front of them went to the eighth round of a shootout as Ottawa faced Tampa Bay. Mike Smith stopped 29 of 31 in the game and then stoned Dean McAmmond for the 3-2 win. Alex Auld stopped 32 of 34 in the game. … Pekka Rinne started Saturday's game, his second contest in a row, and won 3-2 over Florida. Throw out the 14 minutes of junk time in an October 17 loss to Columbus and focus on Rinne's numbers as a starter: 2-0, 1.44 goals-against average and a .944 save percentage. "Dan Ellis who?" is a statement I expect to hear a lot in the future. Not that Rinne can step up and be a fantasy star for your team, but if you are a Turco or Brodeur owner right now, he doesn't look like a bad investment that is available in 99 percent of ESPN leagues. … Todd Bertuzzi's numbers went into a lull through late October, but his first two assists on the season (to bring him to eight points) are a good start to November. He remains a viable fantasy play until injury knocks him out.
Sean Allen is a fantasy baseball and hockey analyst for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him here.
