Grzelcyk left midway through Tuesday's game with an upper-body injury and did not return. However, Grzelcyk was back on the ice for Wednesday's practice session and head coach Bruce Cassidy said that he is "trending" towards playing on Thursday. Grzelcyk remains the QB of the Bruins' PP1, which keeps him in the fantasy conversation but the Bruins offence has been stagnant without David Pastrnak to kick-off the season.
The Hurricanes played in Nashville on Monday and had just one player n the COVID-19 protocol list and that was Jordan Staal. On Tuesday, their game with the Predators was cancelled due to four more players being added to that list, Teravainen among them. The four players with confirmed positive tests must stay behind in Nashville and observe a 10-day isolation period in the team hotel.
Burakovsky is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury and will not play Tuesday vs. the Kings. With Burakovsky out, Joonas Donskoi will move up to the second line and Erik Johnson will make his season debut as the seventh defenseman.
Burakovsky earns a nice raise (from $3.25M to $4.9M) after setting career-highs in goals (20), assists (25), points (45) and PPP (11). Burakovsky has found a home in Colorado's top-6, sometimes on a line with Nathan MacKinnon, so he could take his point totals to another level in 2021.
After spending four years at Brown University and one full season in the AHL, Lafferty spent most of 2020 with the Penguins, scoring six goals with seven assists (13 points) in 50 games. There were a lot of moving parts in Pittsburgh in the offseason but Lafferty should still have a spot in their bottom-6 come January.
Donato is entering the final year of a two-year deal that pays him $1.9M AAV. With the addition of Nick Bjugstad and Kirill Kaprizov coming over from the KHL, Donato was going to be a fringe roster player in Minnesota. San Jose on the other hand, is in desperate need of some middle-6 wingers. Donato was solid in his 1.5 years in Minnesota, scoring 18 goals with 21 assists (39 points) in 84 games.
