This year's hockey pool was a pretty big example of how many games were lost due to injury and where it has put people in the standings this year. At the beginning of the season, much of everything has still remained even, but we do have to realize that there are risks of injury throughout the season, which does provide the biggest gamble in these hockey pools.
If we were to look at the bottom seven teams in the pool, you should probably catch on to the pattern that injuries can take away a team's season... not to mention some bad gambles.
In 8th place on Sunday, Taffy's Tyrants found themselves in injury/minors trouble a quarter of the way through the season. His young Duck, Ryan Getzlaf, found himself playing the minors for several weeks, because he couldn't quite make it in the bigs right away. It was surprising, after he had such a promising pre-season. A couple weeks ago, it was deemed that Eric Lindros would require surgery on his wrist, therefore, cutting his season down to just over 30 games. Granted, Lindros was one of those guys who you may not consider to be your safest picks for staying healthy. Waiver draft pick-up, Brent Seabrook, missed 3 weeks with an injury, only a week or two after being picked. He is healthy again and does pick up points for the Tyrants, but its just to keep him from the basement.
In 9th place, it's the Sherpa's Yaks... who found themselves without a goalie for most of the year. The waiver draft was the time to get rid of your players, but when the draft had actually happened, Dan Cloutier was understood to be coming back for the Canucks not long from then. As it turned out, a couple days later, they put him under the knife, thus ending his season, without very much warning, so Alex Auld's 28 wins were not claimed in the pool and a huge tailspin started. Other major injuries for the Yaks included Martin Havlat (who was dropped), Joni Pitkanen (who was dropped, but is now missed), because Steve Eminger (who was picked up) found himself injured right away and has not registered many points at all.
In 10th place, The Late Impact couldn't catch a break. Again with goaltender problems, Jose Theodore just wasn't playing well, while guys like Alexei Zhamnov (Dropped), Daniel Briere, Craig Conroy (Picked), Pierre Turgeon, and now Andre Markov; couldn't keep themselves healthy in their respective line-ups. This may be a team that hasn't quite been hit as hard on the injury bug, rather just underachieving picks.
In 11th, Team Chevy's defense corps just couldn't manage to stay very healthy all year. Mattias Ohlund, Greg de Vries, Ric Jackman, Daryl Sydor, Oleg Tverdovsky... all couldn't avoid the injury bug this year, thus not getting a whole lot of support from the blue line. It also hasn't helped that his goaltending situation was hurt when Evgeni Nabokov got hurt before he got dropped at the Waiver Draft and then Manny Legace was picked up, only to be platooned with Chris Osgood. A lot of points were lost in the goaltending department as well.
Pull the Goalie, now in 12th, was a team that wasn't sure whether or not to be injured or not. Unfortunately, they were a team not only hit by injuries, but by retirements as well. Ziggy Palffy was one of two guys who retired from the pool this season, it would have been three if Brett Hull was taken, but he wasn't. But Pull the Goalie got hit the hardest not too long ago with the losses of both Ladislav Nagy and Marek Svatos for the season... Waiver Draft drop, Jocelyn Thibault was in the doghouse in Pittsburgh, never to recover. Sergei Fedorov had an early-season injury before being dropped. And Peter Forsberg, was a constant on-again, off-again player, which is what you don't want from your first pick overall.
Thanx For Comin' Out actually shot themselves in the foot by picking poorly, more than having some injury problems... with just a dash of bad luck. The only player they have done for the season is Waiver Draft pick-up, Jiri Slegr... otherwise, their picks of Darren McCarty, Denis Gauthier and Sean O'Donnell came up and bit them in the ass pretty hard. Chuck Kobasew and Todd Bertuzzi are underachieving pretty badly, while Steve Reinprecht is finally finding his game in Phoenix.
Finally, Doug's Deadbeats have been really unlucky this season, only having 3 players over the 60 games played mark from about a week ago. Mike Modano, Sidney Crosby and Bill Guerin were the three guys who have seen just about all the games for their team this year. Mario Lemieux, the second retiree of the pool, left after 26 games, Kenny Jonsson didn't even make it to the NHL this year, Sandis Ozolinsh hit hard by injuries when in Anaheim, Mike Peca struggled with an injury early this year, Alex Frolov didn't make it out of the Olympics healthy, Derek Morris wasn't healthy all year, Dominik Hasek also didn't make it out of the Olympics, Mats Sundin had the puck in the eye injury... the list was long and painful, thus a last-place standing at the moment. They have been fortunate to get points from the games that were played or else the basement would be all theirs.
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