Week Eight Newsletter

The cold wintery blast of Monday morning does nothing to dampen the spirits of the Week Eight Newsletter. That's mostly because it was started during the wintery blast of Sunday afternoon. But who's counting? Scoring was down ever-so-slightly in Week Eight, but there was still a lot of movement within the pool. Some new faces to the Top 10 this week, but we're still sitting with the same leader, who seems to have pulled away a little bit more this past week.

Is anyone willing to catch him??

Let's see what happened in Week Eight...




Martin St. Louis had zero points in Week Seven. So that made it no surprise that no one took him in the pool. Oh, but wait... don't you feel foolish now?? Some of you teams can have him too... if you want. All you would have to do is sacrifice your Ovechkin, Jagr or Heatley. C'mon... heh heh heh.

Okay, in all seriousness though... he did end up with 9 points this week in 4 games. On Monday, he scored Tampa's only two goals in a 7-2 loss to Buffalo. Wednesday, 3 assists in a 6-4 win against Florida. A goal and an assist against Atlanta in a 3-2 win. Finally, Sunday's goal and an assist versus Ottawa brought his total up to 9 points. How's that for convincing? Too bad no one really cashed in on his big gain.

We now have our first repeat recipient of the Mover & Shaker award for best move in the pool. Derek W. has moved himself into the top 10 and in striking distance of the money after a 68-point week, which moved him up 6 spots, from 15th to 9th. The combination of Ducks and Senators proved again to be very important in the pool this week, as they were in Week Four, when Derek last won this prestigous distinction. Teemu Selanne's big night against the Flames last night was the centerpiece of Derek's week, as that lifted him over top of his nearest rivals for the award.

Injuries, demotions and scoring slumps... the formula for any Basement Dweller in any given week. Josh has had a run of all those factors in the past few weeks and now it's really added up. With nine players with zero points in Week Eight, he didn't get the production a team needs to stay up in the top part of the Standings. Josh was stationed up in a money position in the first few weeks, but it all started to add up when other teams were making trades to upgrade their situation, whilst Josh is still holding steady with all five of his trades remaining. In the end, Josh's 44 points dropped him a grand total of 8 spots in the pool, which solidifies his place in Week Eight history.

Long-term Injuries and Pool Trades
Only one team making trades this week (this at the time of writing). Suzanne made a couple of moves for the first time this season. Firstly, she drops Mathieu Garon, who beat Calgary on Saturday night, for the number one guy in Anaheim, J-S Giguere. Then she drops Wade Redden for Ontario-rival Bryan McCabe. These trades are designed to keep Suzanne in the race and back into the money.

Long-term injuries are the name of the game this past week for the Predators. The Preds lost both their starting goaltender, Tomas Vokoun and number two centre, Jason Arnott for six weeks. Vokoun will miss time because of a torn ligament in his catching hand. He had surgery this week to repair the ligament in his thumb before this past weekend. Arnott on the other hand, will miss his six weeks because of a knee injury. This bodes well for rookie Alexander Radulov, who has been called up and has produced three points this week.

Hockey Night In Canada this week...


The Maple Leafs and Canadiens will renew their HNIC rivalry this week... the return of Mats Sundin will play a role against the revolving door in net for the Habs with and Cristobel Huet and David Aebischer. Are you tired of the Avalanche and Canuck rivalry yet? Just like Week Eight, Week Nine will have the third installment of the Avs and Canucks division battle, this time in Vancouver. The Avalanche will ride the hot hand of Jose Theodore against Roberto Luongo, who hasn't beat the Avs in his career.

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