Kovalchuk reportedly benched for missing team meeting

According to Bob McKenzie of TSN in Canada, Ilya Kovalchuk reportedly missed a team meeting on Saturday morning before their game against Buffalo. It was after that, where coach MacLean called him in and decided to scratch him from the line-up. While I have no confirmation of that, it would have been nice if the Devils explained the reasoning sooner. Kovalchuk had the lone Devils goal in last nights loss to the NY Rangers. If that was the reason, then the Devils do need to healthy scratch a player to send a message to the team that their slow start is unacceptable.