Week Nineteen Newsletter

It's Week Twenty and we're finally going to make those final moves for the Draft in the second Waiver Draft. The Draft has already commenced having already made six picks. There hasn't been any surprise that all the good players are filing away quickly, so it will be interesting to see who is available come the time of the top picks.

It's already been quite the entertaining season in the Draft, as the leader has been caught and passed after making himself quite comfortable up at the top and some of the first Waiver Draft players have made quite the effect on the teams they were chosen by. Of course, on the flip side, there were a couple picks that really didn't make the grade and are drop eligible (or already dropped) in the second time around.

It was certainly no surprise to see Radim Vrbata (Ryan) and Jason LaBarbera (Aaron) go early, as they were the top two players available for the Draft. Keep it tuned to the Domain to see who goes where or check out the Waiver Draft page for the up-to-date status of where we are in the Draft.

At the time of publication, Peter Mueller (non-pool) is the top forward available, Mathieu Garon (Box 12) is the top goalie available and Pavel Kubina (Box 22) & Braydon Coburn (Box 23) are the top defensemen available.

I see the All-Star Game poll didn't really do the trick for you lot... nor did the All-Star Game do much for half of those who took the poll either. The All-Star Game is a bit of a spectacle to sell the game to the Americans and us Canadians only really watch it, mostly because it's the only hockey on TV on a Saturday & Sunday evening. With the All-Star Game heading up to Montreal again next season, it should be tweaked a little bit more for viewing pleasure and the centennial season of the Habs, there should be some sort of historical flavour that will give the game a little more lustre in the end. Here's hoping anyways.

Now, however, I'm thinking of a poll that will hopefully get a few more people to vote. Where will Peter Forsberg (Wes) sign? I've got a list of candidates that have been rumoured to be his final destination this season... which one do you think he'll end up in?

Our new leader proved this week why he's the new leader in the Draft, with the best week of us all... by a clear 10 points over anyone else. Stuart was on fire from the word go this week and opened up a 21 point lead on Chris this week, while Chris has fallen back with the mortals. Before anyone can say Hockey Night in Canada this week, Stuart already had cracked the 20-point mark and he just settled into the weekend with a great big weekly lead and cruised through to the 39-point mark. His new weekly best.

Having clutch weeks for Stuart were Pavel Datsyuk (7 points), Cristobel Huet (6), Derek Roy (5), Cam Ward (4), Jochen Hecht (3) and Marek Svatos (3). In actual fact, every active player except Ryan Suter in Nashville had points for Stuart in the week. Now we'll have to see if he can keep up this pace and who he'll drop, if anyone, to improve his team this week.

On the Sheet, Wendy had a share of the biggest week and the biggest move and since she's higher up on the Standings, she can have M&S for this week. She had 52 points in the week and moved up two spots to 20th spot in the pool. Wendy's big week came from Chris Drury (6 points), Daniel Sedin (5), Scott Gomez (5), Mark Streit (5), Henrik Zetterberg (4) and Henrik Lundqvist (4). With the M&S week, she only sits a point out of 19th and 5 out of 18th.

How many times have we seen the Mover & Shaker one week, move down to the Basement the next week? I'm not sure either... I don't really keep track of that, although maybe I should. Anyways, Benson dropped down a position, one of only a couple teams to do so. Struck by injuries in the past week or two, his 18 points were not enough to keep him in fourth spot this past week and if some of his players aren't back up to their normal pace soon, he might find himself dropping a couple more spots in the next couple weeks. Good thing he's got a Waiver Draft to look forward to. He had six active players with zero points in the week, but only two were long-term injuries (Sidney Crosby and Bryan McCabe). Will he drop those two injuries this week?

In the Basement of the Sheet pool, lies Jonny, who's having a bit of a Standings freefall at the moment and he's now without any trades left for the rest of the year. Jonny dropped 3 spots, in consecutive weeks, to now sit 13th. There were 11 players on his active list with zero points in the week and that could be the defining reason why he fell so far over the past couple weeks.

It shouldn't come to anyone as a surprise when the Player of the Week happens to be on the Mover & Shaker's team. How else do you think a team can rack up so many points? Players who consistently and evenly end up with 4 points in the week? I think not.

For Week Nineteen, our honouree managed to put together 7 points in the week. Pavel Datsyuk (Stuart) played in three games this past week, in which the Red Wings had won all three of them.

On Wednesday, the Wings beat Phoenix 3-2 and Datsyuk had 3 assists. Friday, the Wings hosted Colorado and shut them out 2-0. Datsyuk then added another 2 assists. Finally, on Saturday, the Wings travelled to Boston, beat the Bruins 3-1 and Datsyuk scored his first goal of the week and added an assist. It was quite the substantial week. A goal and six assists makes Pavel Datsyuk the Player of the Week.

I'm not afraid to say it, but Roberto Luongo (John B.) is playing pretty cold in a pool sense, but it isn't all his fault either. The defense in front of him hasn't been up to par, especially with all the injuries of late. To pile it all on, Luongo only has 2 points in the last 3 weeks, which is far from what is expected of him and thus, the Canucks have fallen a bit in the race for the Northwest Division. Luckly for Burnsy, he has had other players picking up the slack Luongo has left behind.

Other News and Notes

The Sabres may miss Jaroslav Spacek (Dieter) for a game or two with an upper-body injury. Spacek was injured on Friday night and doctors were not writing Spacek off for a game, but they were not necessarily giving him the okay to go out and play this coming week. Stay tuned.

It looks as though Marek Svatos (Stuart) needed a night off for the Avalanche. He was a scratch against the Blues in St. Louis on Saturday night. Svatos only has 5 assists to go with his 22 goals this year and he might be a piece of a puzzle that brings a veteran player to Denver.

On Saturday, forward Fredrik Modin (Box 3) returned to the press box as a scratch against the Wild. Modin had been bothered with back problems this season and it is possible that his return was a little premature.

Both Sergei Zubov (Chris) and Joel Lundqvist (Box 9) sat against Calgary late on Saturday night. Zubov has been plagued with a foot injury and must not have been prepared to play, while Lundqvist has been a scratch on a regular basis for the Stars this season. With Zubov's injury, the Stars may be a little bit more proactive to find their blueline some more help for the stretch run.

One of Edmonton's better players sat on Friday night versus Dallas and it was due to a sore shoulder. Shawn Horcoff (Dennis), the Oilers leading scorer, missed the match, but won't be out of the line-up for too long. It looks as though it was just a precautionary scratch on Friday night.

Panthers forward Jozef Stumpel (Marcus) has been diagnosed with a mild separated shoulder and had missed the game against the Lightning. There hasn't been any word as to how long the Czech forward will be out, but a separated shoulder could cost him a few games.

Fueling the fires of speculation, Michael Ryder (Benson) sat for the Habs on Sunday against the Rangers. Ryder is no stranger to the trade rumours over the past couple years and the more he sits, the more you can believe that he may get moved for someone who can provide some good minutes.

On Monday morning, the Canadiens sent Jaroslav Halak (Box 24) back to the AHL for some conditioning and it's expected that the Habs will call-up Carey Price (Marcus) to fill the role as back-up for the time being.

Predators forward Jason Arnott (Marcus) missed Saturday's game against the Coyotes with a leg injury he suffered against the Blue Jackets a couple nights before. Arnott, who was on an 8-game point streak, also won't know his availability until Monday or Tuesday for their next game against the Hurricanes.

The Rangers were without Brendan Shanahan (Marcus) on Sunday against the Canadiens as he sat out with a sore hamstring. It looked more like a day off than a long-term injury, which is some really good news for the Rangers and for Marcus, who is suffering with quite a few injuries, if you haven't noticed going down the list here.

The coaching staff had Fredrik Sjostrom (Box 8) back in the press box against the Predators on Saturday night. Sjostrom had a good start to the season, but if I remember correctly, the coaching staff does have a problem with his work ethic, which does keep him in the press box more often than not.

Much like Sjostrom above, Steve Eminger (Box 22) returned to the press box as a healthy scratch. Eminger finally cracked the double-digit mark in the games played column, but that isn't enough to stay in the line-up. Eminger definitely hasn't lived up his pool expectation as his spot on the Selection Sheet thought he might.




If Hockey Day in Canada wasn't on a Saturday, I'm sure it would be a national holiday. Well, at least I would like to think that anyways. It's the annual tradition that sees a tripleheader on CBC with a few hours of coverage telling stories about the wonderful aspects that hockey brings to Canada and how we embrace it as a culture. Unfortunately, with the NHL scheduling, Hockey Day in Canada will not be it's usual all-Canadian tripleheader, because the two divisions where all the Canadian teams play are not scheduled to play together. Instead, here in Alberta, we won't even get to see the Ottawa/Montreal game, rather we get the Battle of Alberta in the 5pm slot. We do get to see the Detroit/Toronto match-up as the first game of the day, while the Canucks host the Avalanche as the late game. It may not be all-Canadian, but you know where I'll be on Saturday.

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