Where To Look...

A hotbed of points are in Ottawa this year. The potential top line of Heatley-Spezza-Bochenski is quite possibly leaving a lot of poolies reaching for the wet naps to clean the drool off their chin. I, for one, find myself increasing the value of these forwards each time I see highlights of their play on TSN or Sportsnet. I mean, they look awesome.

Then you look to the possible second line for the Senators could be projected to look like: Havlat-Alfredsson-Schaefer... and if it isn't Schaefer, it might be one of the enforcers, like Chris Neil. If you have PIM in your pool, look for Neil to do both for you.

Not long after singing the praise of Alexander Ovechkin, he scored a hat-trick and added an assist in the pre-season game against Pittsburgh. I haven't been able to see much for highlights, but when they start showing up online, I will be watching. I saw his name on the scoresheet with the likes of Jeff Halpern, another centre in Washington, who added a couple of assists. If Halpern has a job with Ovechkin, you're looking at another good sleeper.

With much anticipation of the big line in Vancouver, sneak in the back door with the second line of Daniel Sedin-Henrik Sedin-Anson Carter. The twins are due for their big breakout, which is widely considered to happen this year and Anson Carter becomes a very marketable pool pick with playing with them.

The Avalanche haven't been roaring in the mainstream news, except for the loss of Milan Hejduk in the last couple weeks. They look to have trimmed their roster to a point where the opening day line-up looks to be fairly set. The breakthrough players of Marek Svatos & Wojtek Wolski may give the Avs the extra bit of oomph that they need to be the dominating team that they've been over the last 10 years. Feel like gambling?? That Wolski has been getting high praise from Joe Sakic... if that means anything to ya.

Dreaming of D? Come to Nashville for a fire sale on defensemen for your pool. Marek Zidlicky and Kimmo Timonen look to be locks for every pool this season and why not? But if you dig a little deeper, you may find a few more picks that could provide that extra punch from the blueline... Dan Hamhuis & Danny Markov are both great candidates for your team... moving the puck is what they do best.