An early vacation from the pool for your administrator leaves the newsletter being published a little later than usual and the Standings not updated from Friday to this morning. Just to let you all know, that this coming Saturday night's update may be a bit delayed as well as I will be away at a Christmas Party and I don't know how up to snuff I'll be on Sunday morning.
As you may have noticed from
the Standings, we have ourselves a new leader. This is explored a little further in the newsletter, so I won't ruin the surprise of what happens next.
It was a quiet week in my inbox as well... not a lot of trading was going on either... but I won't ruin that surprise, as it's also quoted a bit down below.
It seems to me that there is a lot more games this week in the league, so expect a lot of points and just as much movement from people in the Standings.
Let's see what happened in Week Five...
With three goals and five assists in two games this week,
Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins was Week Five's Player of the Week.
The former Atlanta Thrasher was tied for the best week with two others at eight points (Mats Sundin and Vincent Lecavalier), but Savard did it in two games, whereas the other two did it in three. For those who thought Savard only put up those astronomical numbers last season because of his high-scoring teammates, he's deciding to prove you wrong.
Savard, taken six times in the pool, made Box 20 an important choice to make, rather than "just the second Eastern Conference centreman." Boston, I think, should be playing three times this week, so if Savard keeps his pace during the sixth week of the pool, then he'll put up some big numbers for those six teams.
This week's Mover & Shaker took the pool lead this week... 71 points, a move from fifth to first,
Jeff gave himself a two-point lead heading into Week Six.
Jeff's top players in Week Five were the current PotW,
Marc Savard,
Ray Whitney (7 points),
Alex Ovechkin & Tomas Kaberle (6 points) and
Jarome Iginla (5 points).
Jeff has been in the Top 10 since Week Two and this is now his peak position, as you can't go any higher in the pool than first. Jeff does find himself with only one trade left in the year, so his gamble will be that a maximum of one player will be hurt long-term on his team. It's a risk being run by a few teams already in the pool, but since he's in first at the moment, it doesn't look too bad.
This week's Basement Dweller is
Russell. Russell has had a Top 10 team twice so far this season, but after Week Five, he has fallen to his lowest position, 23rd. His only saving grace this past week was Brendan Shanahan, who had a very good six points, but nine of his players didn't show up to produce for him at all.
Much unlike our new leader, Russell has not made any trades so far this season. He only has one player that hasn't given him a point this season (
Peter Schaefer), but has lasted fairly well up until now. With still over 20 weeks to go in the season, there's still lots of time to recover, only being 28 points back of any money.
At the time of publishing, there were only five trades made in the pool for Week Six. Only four teams chose to upgrade their teams for the coming week;
Chris,
Dieter,
Don and
Larry (made 2 trades). Three of the four teams are in the Top 10 already and are using up their trades early to ensure that they stay up top. It still remains to be seen if this tactic will make a big difference or whether their luck will run out with injuries later on down the road. Can they stay on top and/or make a big enough lead for when the worst happens?
For the few of you Sabre-holders, you'll be keen to know that the Week Three PotW,
Maxim Afinogenov, will be sidelined for at least a couple weeks with a shoulder injury. This leads to the question: will this effect the Sabres short-term performance, both in the standings and in terms of pool points. Afinogenov was a staple on
Daniel Briere's line and did see time with the likes of
Chris Drury and
Thomas Vanek. With Afinogenov doing a lot of the goal scoring, the other players were benefitting from his production with production of their own. Could this mean a dip in points for those who dropped players for Drury or Vanek? Something to watch, indeed...
Just in case you had any sort of inkling at all to drop
Joe Thornton for
Mike Comrie... you may want to hold off for about a month. Comrie has been listed with a broken foot and well... it's a long-term injury, so I thought I would put it on here... you know... just as a heads up.
Predators top prospect,
Alexander Radulov, doesn't seem to have the moxie to stay up with the big club so far this season. Radulov, today, was sent down to the minors for more practice down there. The blue-chip rookie only potted two goals for the big club and didn't seem to fit into the system there in Nashville. This decision only effects
one team now in the pool, as he has been dropped a few times from other teams.
Hockey Night In Canada will play host to four Canadian teams on Saturday... two excellent rivalries will be shown. First of all,
Sheldon Souray and the Canadiens will go into the ACC to face
Mats Sundin and the Maple Leafs. Souray, is tied for the points lead in Montreal, while Sundin leads the Leafs in pool points. In the second half of the doubleheader, we go to Vancouver where
Jarome Iginla and the Flames will be in to face
Henrik and Daniel Sedin and the rest of the Canucks. Iginla potted five points with the Flames last week and seems to have some steam going forward, while the twins have a combined 31 points so far this season.
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Of course it isn't until after I finish the newsletter that I find that there are a couple key injuries. First, Alexei Yashin is now listed as out for 4 weeks after a knee-on-knee collision on Saturday. Yashin, taken three times in the pool, is enjoying a fairly productive year thus far... 28 points, ranked fourth in Box 14, only 3 points behind first. The month missed could be fairly devastating, especially in the high-scoring box he's in.
The favourite pick in Box 12, also a favourite pick on the trade market, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, has been listed as out indefinitely with a broken finger. TSN is reporting that the injury isn't quite that bad and he could be back rather quickly, but if it is a broken finger, you can expect Giguere will miss at least three weeks. Anaheim, who is missing Ilya Bryzgalov as well, will be using a couple rookie keepers in the absence of their two top goalies.
If things couldn't go much worse for Philly these days, just think how they felt when they lost forward 
Lastly, we're swimming with one of the deadliest Sharks in the water.