Week Thirteen Newsletter

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Isn't it fitting that the end of the week was December 31st? It is, in a vague sort of way. The only problem with this is, Week Fourteen has already gone underway and I'm still writing the Newsletter. Oh well... it's pretty much done now.

The year ends, the week ends and the gap from 1st to 2nd has shrunk by another 2 points. Jeff chipped the lead away from Dieter and it only stands at 10 points. But as the lead gets chipped away, Don looks like he wants to party with the young lads, as he picked up a whopping 14 points on Jeff, which is 16 on Dieter. The party doesn't stop on New Year's Eve. The distance from 4th to 8th has also been rather interesting, only 11 points separating those teams.

With long-term injuries to first-line players starting to stack up, there is a lot of chances for a lot of teams to either take a spill and other teams to take their place. Teams who have used up their trades may suffer and teams who aren't really paying too much attention will fall without any notice.

Consistent weeks with a gain (Hot, hot, hot!):
Caterina: +14 places in the last 6 weeks
Larry: +9 places in the last 5 weeks

On an elevator goin' down:
Derek W.: -16 places in the last 5 weeks

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

Player of the Week



Three games, 10 points... and Ray Emery isn't the only one. For Week Thirteen though, Emery only has eight teams with him on the roster, so he was the keeper making moves in the pool.

Three wins, two shutouts made Emery a coveted player in the pool. He shut out both New York teams between Wednesday and Friday and then walked into Toronto on Saturday night to capture his 9th and 10th points of the week.

The highest point total in the week gave Dale C. the Mover & Shaker award this week, as he moved within one point of being in the money again. Dale spent the first seven weeks of the season in the money. For a few weeks, he was in first. Then it all came crumbling down... until the last couple weeks. Dale picked up 85 points in Week 13, having both goaltenders that tallied 10 points in the week was the biggest help. Also coming up huge for Dale were Daniel Sedin (8 points), Joe Thornton (6 points), Brian Rolston (6 points), Kurtis Foster (6 points) and Thomas Vanek (5 points). It will be interesting to see if Dale can keep the hot streak alive and move back into the money.

From closing in on the money to quickly moving away from the money. Bryan, who was sitting in the money six weeks ago, has really started to decline. It all came to a head this week with a lacklustre 45 points, which dropped him out of the Top 10 and down to 15th. Bryan did have some of the same players that Dale did to get him the M&S, but the difference was Bryan had 10 players that were shutout during the week. Still with five trades remaining in the season, guys like Phil Kessel and Jordan Leopold, who have been recently injured (and somewhat under-performing when playing), could be a couple of considerations for movements. Sitting close to the money and still having trades remaining is a nice luxury, but where do you draw the line?

Sidney Crosby - 58 points
With J-S Giguere going down with an injury this week, it left the door wide open for Sid the Kid to take the title after Week Thirteen. Giguere, however, has passed the torch to Box 18, Eastern All-Star, Martin Brodeur... Brodeur's 10 points in Week 13 brought his annual total to 56, only two behind the Penguin phenom. Brodeur has finally found his niche in new NHL and he leads the league in shutouts with six.

Long-term Injuries and Pool Trades
The ship is taking hits left and right in Anaheim. Early Sunday evening in a loss to Minnesota, the Ducks lost defenseman (and popular pick) Chris Pronger with a broken foot. Pronger, the 2nd most popular player in the pool, will be greatly missed by both the Ducks and his pool teams for an undetermined amount of time. Box 5 players like Blake, Hamrlik and Schneider are all salivating at the chance to playing catch-up... as are their owners in the pool.

You're still not waiting for Todd Bertuzzi to come back are you? Gosh, I hope not. It was announced again that he'll still be about 2 months before returning to game action with the Panthers.

If you're the single owner of Christian Backman, you'll be missing him for about three weeks or so after a knee injury in Week Thirteen.

Going into Week 14 and since the Phoenix & Washington game has already dropped the puck early on New Year's Day, there were only 7 trades made. Ernest made a couple more moves to keep pace with the rest of the Top 10. Tim L., on the other hand, blew all five of his trades to maybe make a move into the Top 20. Panthers defenseman, Ruslan Salei, was the popular player between the two teams, as they picked him up for their respective Box 23 players.

Hockey Night In Canada this week...



Would you believe it? The week before the all-Canadian Hockey Day In Canada tripleheader, HNIC unleashes a tripleheader the weekend before. The new year begins with the Rangers & Canadiens in an early game on Saturday. It then follows with the Sabres going to Toronto to beat the Leafs at 5pm. Finally, the Flames will face someone other than a Northwest Division rival in hosting the Stars at the Dome.


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