Week Twenty-One Newsletter

Call it my complacency about not being in the money or just some of my over-partying ways (okay, not really), but you combine one of those excuses with a busy few days at the office, you're going to get Newsletters that run a little bit later than normal.  Just the way it is going to be, I guess.  Nevertheless, the Newsletter has dropped and hopefully, it is as good as they normally are... assuming that they are.

Lead Opens Up Again

Allan scored his fourth straight week at the top of the table again, opening up a 12-point lead on the rest of the pack.  This is only the third Monday this season, where the week will open up with a double-digit lead, the last two not lasting very long, dropping back into small single-digit leads, as the pool evened itself out, in a manner of speaking.

Chris moved back into 2nd place, after one week in 3rd place, while Scott moved into the money.  Scott spent three weeks finishing the week in 4th place and has now seen his first week in the money, 3rd place.  Taking the jersey prize position for the week is Derek Wilton, who moved up one spot to move in.  Falling out of the prizes in Week Twenty-One, Stacey C. and you'll see why in a little bit.

Allan Still In Line for a Second Jersey

I guess it's pretty bad already when Allan won the first segment prize, now sits in the lead in the pool for the last four weeks and also holds the lead for the third jersey prize... AND HE DIDN'T EVEN PICK HIS TEAM.  This will illicit a rule change for next year, but for the time being, rules are rules and he's going to cash in with them, by the look of things.  Dale C. now sits 7 points out in 2nd place in the segment, still reachable, for sure.  Scott and Chris, two money teams, are also in the race, while Mike is 17 points out in 5th place.

A team that isn't too far out only needs a couple good weeks and they should be in the conversation.

Goal Scoring Race

It isn't a money-winning statistic, but it is kind of a fun statistic to watch during the year, as teams need goals, like they need any other stat.  Derek Wilton leads the pool through Week Twenty-One with 190 goals scored by his players, while Brenda is not too far back with 186.  Brenda has had the lead for 14 weeks throughout the year, while Allan, who sits in 3rd with 181, has also had a couple of weeks at the top.

On the opposite end, Doug's team has only managed 111 goals this season, while Dale B. has only seen 114 and Leo has only registered 118.

In terms of streaky players, I think a name that should really stand out is Tyler Seguin, who used a bit of a hot streak to top the Player of the Week scoring for Week Twenty-One, as the 22-year old centre made good use of a couple of his four games in the week to take top spot.

Seguin, acquired by the Stars from the Bruins in the off-season, has seen a number of really good games this season and is now on pace to smash his career-best numbers, which he set a couple years ago with Boston.

The week started off like a regular week for the Dallas pivot, picking up an assist on Monday against the Sabres, followed up by getting shutout by the Blue Jackets on Tuesday.  On Thursday, however, he took full advantage of a lacklustre Canucks team, taking them for a hat-trick and a pair of assists, bringing his points total to 6 for the week.  On Saturday, he finished off his week with another good game, scoring a goal and adding a pair of helpers against the Minnesota Wild.  4 goals and 5 assists in four games, 4 goals and 4 assists in two games helps too.

The new streak of hotness for Seguin has lifted his season totals up to 29 goals and 37 assists in 62 games played, scoring at 1.06 points per game, which now has him ranked 9th overall in pool scoring.  Seguin accounts for 13.3% of Stacey M.'s total points this season, her team's top player to this point.

The 2014 season appears to be his coming out party and he may just find his way into the 1st round conversation for the draft next year.

After spending the best part of five weeks in 15th place in the standings, it took a Mover & Shaker week for Wes to move up and out... to 14th place.  Yes, despite having a 35-point week in the pool, in the bottom half of the standings, his team was only able to move up one spot, but I guess one is better than none and a Mover & Shaker week is better than not having anything at all.

On the plus side, Wes is only 6 points behind 13th place and 14 points out of the top half of the standings, which is far more reachable now that he has had his Mover & Shaker week.

Wes had a monster week from his goaltending, which had a 12-point week, thanks to a pair of 6-spots from both Tuukka Rask of the Bruins and Mike Smith of the Coyotes.  Marc Giordano of the Flames kicked in 5 points, while Matt Moulson of the Wild and Travis Zajac of the Devils each had 4 points.  Three players on his team failed to register points, but two of those are injured for the long-term and gave good reason not to have points.  Still, his team did well for having two long-term injuries on it and still able to get a Mover & Shaker.

The big goaltending week has lifted Wes' team into a tie for top spot in goaltender scoring, picking up 122 points through 21 weeks, tied with Chris for top honours.  Wes' forwards and defense are both below-average this year, which is the biggest reason why his team struggles to get to the midway point in the standings.

As it was pointed out earlier in the Newsletter, Stacey C. fell out of the prize positions and being the Basement Dweller will do that to a team.

Now, to be fair, Stacey's team is tied for 4th in points, but loses the goals scored tie-breaker to the pool leader in the column, which I suppose had its fair share of foreshadowing earlier.

Stacey's team finished the week with 12 points, as four players on his side finished with 2 points in the week, while four other players had a single point.  Stacey has one player in the minors now, as Devan Dubnyk, who was traded to the Montreal Canadiens, was assigned to Hamilton of the AHL, shortly after the deal went down.

24 points is now the gap between Stacey's team and 1st place and we still have lots of time for his team to make up that space, but this is not what a prize team wants to have happen in the season.

NEWS AND NOTES

With the acquisition of Andrej Meszaros by the Boston Bruins, it gave the team more than enough depth on the blueline, which makes the room for error that much smaller. On Sunday, Dougie Hamilton was a victim of this depth, as Meszaros joined the line-up at the expense of Hamilton's healthy scratch.  It will be an interesting situation going forward for the Bruins and their blueline, since the depth should mean that there is no letdowns and if there are, someone will move out of the line-up for a game, maybe more.

Scary moment for the Dallas Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen, who took the brunt of a diving Minnesota Wild forward Erik Haula, as Haula drove himself into the keeper's head, sending his mask flying and his body into the net.  Lehtonen suffered a concussion and is currently listed as day-to-day, but will go through the correct protocols, which means he will miss at least a week with the injury.  In his stead, the Stars will turn to Tim Thomas, who they acquired at the Trade Deadline.

Reports are surfacing from the Detroit Red Wings organization that goaltender Jonas Gustavsson is experiencing some more groin problems an these will likely keep him out of the line-up for the next little while.  Gustavsson did not dress on Sunday and he may not dress for at least another game this week.  He is currently listed as out day-to-day and Petr Mrazek has been called up to take his spot on the bench behind Jimmy Howard.

A hand injury for Ottawa Senators forward Clarke MacArthur has sidelined him for the next little while.  Reports out of the organization say that MacArthur will not require surgery for his injured hand and that it will be a matter of his pain threshold before he can draw back into the line-up.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 8)

The Buffalo Sabres are not going to get any sort of real return out of Chris Stewart for the next little while, it looks like, as the rugged forward suffered an injury on Thursday night, against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and he is now not expected to dress for his club on Sunday evening, against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Stewart has played in a couple games for the Sabres, since being traded from the Blues around the deadline, but has failed to register a point with his new club.  Overall, Stewart ranks 234th in pool scoring, with 15 goals and 11 assists in 60 games between his two clubs.

In the pool, Mike has Stewart on his side and has collected about 5.3% of his points from the forward this year.  Mike chose Stewart in the 4th round, 86th overall, likely assuming his play with St. Louis would mean much more than it did, thus being a bit of a bust this year.

Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 7)

The Washington Capitals are in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race, sitting one point out of the last wild card spot, and they continued their chase against the Sabres on Thursday night. Forward Brooks Laich was held out of the line-up in the key match-up, as the groin problem that has been bothering him all year long, sidelined him again.  It sounds like Laich went home early to get things checked out and his status for their next game, Saturday at home to the Phoenix Coyotes is questionable, at best.

Looks like Allan may be down another man for a little bit, but he does have a 13-point lead going into the weekend, as both Stacey C. and Chris have faltered this week, trying to keep him within striking range.

Player Notes in the Draft (Mar 6)

With no game on either side of Wednesday night's game against the Montreal Canadiens, Anaheim Ducks forward Teemu Selanne took a surprise night off from the line-up.  There was no indication of any injury or anything else that would suggest that Selanne's absence wasn't a healthy scratch, so I would say it's safe to assume that it was just an extra night off for the 43-year old forward.  It is quite possible that the Olympics have caught up to him as well.

The absence didn't necessarily hurt Chris in the standings last night, as he remained tied for 2nd, 3rd on the tie-breakers, but did lose some extra ground on Allan, who is in 1st place.

During the trade deadline rigamoroll, the Detroit Red Wings announced that they will be shutting down forward Pavel Datsyuk for the next three weeks, due to the nagging knee injury that he has been plagued with. The team has announced that their number one pivot won't require any surgery on his knee, but these three weeks will be for rest and he'll be re-evaluated then. The combination of all the injuries on the team right now, led to the acquisition of David Legwand from the Predators and he'll make his debut tonight.

Ryan V. won't likely lose any footing in the pool, as his 22nd place team has a 32-point gap on 23rd place, but he is only 6 points out of 20th and 10 points out of 19th.  Moving up in the standings would be a small victory, I guess.

It sounds like the season for Ottawa Senators defenseman Joe Corvo has come to an early end... in the NHL, that is. The veteran defenseman cleared waivers on Wednesday and the Senators couldn't drum up a trade for him either, so they were able to find him a spot on the Chicago Wolves roster in the AHL, where he is expected to play out the remainder of the season. The 36-year old blueliner will become an unrestricted free agent in July, but with a cap hit of only $900,000 this year, the likelihood of him signing anywhere next year seems somewhat slim.

A disappointing turn of events for Leo, who is already in last place in the standings, as he won't be getting anymore help from Corvo this year.  Corvo may have been a drop in the second Waiver Draft, but by then, Leo was already resigned to his team's fate and just let him go.

The Calgary Flames were already showcasing some of their young talented players on Wednesday night, thanks to some injuries before their game against the Ottawa Senators. Unfortunately, during that same game, they suffered a couple more injuries, which could lead to a couple more players being called up for a game or two. Forward Jiri Hudler and defenseman Dennis Wideman each suffered upper-body injuries against the Sens and were unable to return. As of Thursday afternoon, there wasn't much word on the severity of the injuries, but I would imagine if it is more serious than day-to-day, we'll have an update here before their game against the Islanders on Friday.

Not likely the news that either Ryan M. or Grant, respectively, were looking for down the stretch.  Ryan sits 14th and Grant sits 12th, going into Thursday night's action and are likely hoping for good news before Friday night's game.

The Carolina Hurricanes placed defenseman Justin Faulk on the Injured Reserve, retroactive to the weekend, so they could recall young blueliner Ryan Murphy from the minors. Faulk was injured in Sunday's game against the Anaheim Ducks and didn't return. The injury is an upper-body injury and it will keep the defender out for about 10 days and the team has concluded that the injury is not a concussion, which I suppose is good news, in the long-term sense.

One person's injury is another's good fortune, as Stacey M. will lose a defender for a few more days, while Allan gets a player back in the active line-up to help extend his lead.  Stacey now sits 8 points out of the prizes in 5th place and is only 5 points ahead of 10th... a slippery slope, indeed.

Lost in some of the hustle and bustle of the trade deadline was the absence of Martin Hanzal from the Phoenix Coyotes line-up, when they played against the Vancouver Canucks.  Hanzal is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, which has him as questionable/doubtful for Thursday night's game against the Montreal Canadiens.  Hanzal has reportedly been dealing with this injury and been getting treatment for it, so there is that chance he might try to play through it, but if the Coyotes are in the playoff mix, they may want to consider a little bit of rest, seeing as though they did acquire Martin Erat at the deadline to help offensively.

Of course, rest won't help Mike's team at all, as he sits in the pack that is just outside of the prizes, right in the mix for some glory.  Mike is having a pretty good week so far, registering 9 points and moved up a spot in the process, sitting 7th, 10 points out of the prizes.

Penguins Get Depth in Stempniak

Finally, my last post from Trade Deadline Day, as the last player in the hockey pool moved at the deadline was Lee Stempniak, formerly of the Calgary Flames. Stempniak was dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 3rd round pick.

The Flames were not necessarily supposed to be in a fire sale on Wednesday, but they were expected to move a few of the future unrestricted free agents and they only moved a couple, the only pool player being Stempniak, the other being goaltender Reto Berra, gone to the Avalanche for a 2nd.

The Penguins had their irons in a few fires, if you were to believe the hype surrounding today, but they only came away with some depth, not able to gain any insurance for some of their softer superstars.

In Stempniak, the Penguins will gain some quality depth for their third line, as he is a very gritty winger, with some scoring upside, given that he has been a second line winger for the Flames for a little while now.

In 2014, the 31-year old forward has 8 goals and 15 assists in 51 games for the Flames, ranking 294th in pool scoring to this point in the season.  He immediately becomes an upgrade on a number of wingers that are already in the Penguins' fold and could also bump up in the depth chart, if some more grit is needed with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.

I'm sure that Leo would have preferred this deal to have happened at the beginning of the season, just after the draft.  Maybe Stempniak would have more than 23 points and Leo wouldn't be in last place in the standings?

Halak Shoehorned Into Caps Crease

If you haven't heard yet, it was the Trade Deadline Day for the goalies. Jaroslav Halak and Michal Neuvirth finished the day for the netminders, being swapped for one another to help solve some situations.

Halak, who was acquired by the Sabres in the deal that saw Ryan Miller go to St. Louis earlier in the frenzy, was flipped along side a 3rd round draft pick, heading to the Washington Capitals for Neuvirth and defenseman Rostislav Klesla, who was also flipped from a previous deal also.  This deal turned into deals from deals, which kind of made the deadline a lot more exciting.

Halak, when it was all said and done, was the second-best player to be dealt at the deadline and the best player to be dealt twice at the deadline.  Halak didn't make any appearances in his short stint with the Sabres, but in St. Louis, he was able to give them 24 wins, 4 shutouts and an assist for 57 points and a 1.53 points per 60 minutes scoring rate in the pool.  Halak, at the start of Wednesday night's action, was ranked 28th overall, a high 2nd round pick in the pool, if you were counting.

Remarkably, this is one of the few deals where there were a couple of pool players moved and it was the second goalie in the deal, Neuvirth, who will provide the Sabres with another mid-tier option in their crease.

Neuvirth has been an 'alright' goaltender for the Capitals in his career, showing flashes of really good play and then some real lemon games.  In 2014, Neuvirth has appeared in 13 games, winning 4 and adding an assist for only 9 points.

The Capitals were looking for a starter and the Sabres were looking for someone who could play right away, if needed, playing behind Jhonas Enroth.  The Sabres will likely be looking for a franchise goalie in the foreseeable future, but for now, they will finish the season with two mid-level keepers, likely aiming for the 1st overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft.

Welcome back to the bottom of the standings, as Doug has Halak and Derek Wyllie has Neuvirth, both below the equator in the standings.

Now, Wyllie is in the triple-digits going into Wednesday night's action in the third segment and if he can get a few more starts, something he wasn't going to get in Washington, even before Halak's arrival, he is already in a better position.  Wyllie has the worst numbers from the crease this year, with 20 total points, so any improvement would be smiled upon.

Moulson Goes Wild

The Buffalo Sabres were considered the "epicenter of the trade deadline" and for good reason.  The biggest reason was Matt Moulson, who was in the top three available forwards on Wednesday.  Yes, it came down to the dying minutes of the allotted time for trades, but the deal got done and it was the Minnesota Wild that came away winners.

As it reads on Wednesday evening, Matt Moulson and Cody McCormick headed to the Wild for forward Torrey Mitchell and a couple of 2nd round picks, from 2014 and 2016.  It really didn't look like the Wild had to give up too much for a scoring winger and some help, who could possibly re-sign in the Summer, if all goes well in the end.

At the deadline, Moulson was ranked 113th in pool scoring, thanks to 17 goals and 21 assists in 55 games between Long Island and Buffalo.

Moulson was also involved in the deal that sent Thomas Vanek to Long Island, which started a lot of the trade rumours and suggestions, that neither team were going to be able to keep their new bodies through the deadline.

Moulson should provide some decent depth scoring to a Minnesota team that is right in the thick of the Western Conference playoff mix.  The Wild are getting healthy as well, just as they start the home stretch, not to mention they have also acquired Ilya Bryzgalov to help with their goaltending, trying to become a serious contender to make it out of the West.

This is the second player on Wes' team that has been moved at the deadline and the third player that has been mentioned in a blog post today, thanks to an injury.  His 15th place team has been in the news, but I will reiterate... his team is too far out of contention for any of these deals to really make a difference.

Montreal Wins the Vanek Sweeps

No question, the biggest prize at this deadline was going to be forward Thomas Vanek, who the Islanders acquired earlier in the year from Buffalo in a pretty big deal.  The Islanders were unable to convince the Austrian sniper to re-sign with the team, so they had to deal him out.

There were a number of powerhouse teams looking to add a guy like Vanek at this deadline, but surprisingly, the Montreal Canadiens came up with the win and it turned out that the price wasn't quite as high as what the Islanders paid for him in the first place.  Coming back in return is prospect goaltender Sebastian Collberg and a conditional draft pick, a 2nd rounder.

The Montreal Canadiens got an instant offensive upgrade in Vanek and they didn't have to give up anything that was in their line-up right away.  With the Canadiens entrenched in the Atlantic Division playoff spots, they were going to need some more offense, helping out a pretty good defense and even better goaltending.

Between Buffalo and Long Island, Vanek has scored 21 goals and 32 assists in 60 games, good enough for 35th in pool scoring, heading into tonight's action.

This has some potential to be a good move for Vanek and therefore Chris in the pool, as there should be some excitement about going to a team that is in a playoff push.  It will be interesting to see who Vanek will line-up with the Habs, but he does have enough talent to make some offense on his own.