Following up on and recapping DDC's post regarding roster moves, Brian Willsie was reassigned to Lake Erie yesterday after Cody McLeod's return to the line up on Wednesday.  Today Chris Durno was reassigned, something on which Dater speculated with Darcy Tucker's return forth coming.  But before that will happen, the Avs also activated Matt Hendricks from the IR today.  Philippe Dupuis is still on the roster with T.J. Galiardi out for a few more weeks, giving the Avs 13 healthy forwards to date.

An Unmitigated Disaster noted that Tom Preissing was sent to Lake Erie on a conditioning assignment yesterday.

Today, Terry Frei is reporting that Ruslan Salei says he'll be back sometime between a week and a month.  In the Frei article, Sacco notes that with Ryan Wilson still on the roster, the Avs will have 8 healthy defensemen once Tom Preissing returns from his conditioning assignment.

Barring further injuries, it seems likely that Ryan Wilson will be reassigned upon Preissing's return.  And with Salei set to return not long after, the Avs could again be faced with the "problem" of having too many defensemen.

I'm personally of the opinion that it's a good problem to have so many veteran defensemen chomping at the bit.  The season's only about 20% complete and injuries will inevitably happen.  And when you see playoff bound teams loading up on defensive depth at the trade deadline, you see how important that can be. 

I'm sure that when/if the Avs do finally get healthy on the back end, trade rumors are going to heat up involving any combination of Salei, Clark, and Preissing.  But, I think that the more likely scenario is that T.J. Hensick is waived and the Avs go with 8 defensemen.  Hensick hasn't played much at all so far this season and has been frequently scratched by Joe Sacco - even in favor of recent call ups.  When he has played, he hasn't played poorly.  He just doesn't seem to fit in with the team and doesn't seem to have the coach's favor.

On a related note, I am such a procrastinating graduate student.