Week One Newsletter

Here we have it! We're live with some real hockey news. The opening Premiere weekend has come and gone, both in Europe and on television here in North America. Sure, there's a few more pre-season games to polish up, but we'll be good to go for real on Thursday. First of all, we'll review our first four games and the impact it will have on the week to come.

In Prague, the Rangers and Lightning went head-to-head and it was the Rangers that came away with four points in the standings with a pair of wins. The Rangers were very dominant over Tampa in the Shots On Goal category, outshooting them 39-19 in the second game alone. Scott Gomez led the way with three points for the Rangers, while Henrik Lundqvist earned four pool points with his two wins as well. The Rangers had plenty of help from new faces like Markus Naslund and Wade Redden, who both finished up with two points a piece in these games.

For Tampa Bay, the big question marks surround the team and how they will gel together with a load of new faces and what kind of impact will Steven Stamkos makes? The team only managed two goals in the two games and was guilty of a lot of turnovers (14 giveaways in both games) and a lot of shots against (80 in total). Stamkos on the other hand, only managed to get in 22 minutes in both games combined, 8 in the first and 14 in the second, getting 3 shots on goal and he hit a couple posts as well. Nothing big off the hop, however. The Lightning will have to be a good North American team, because their European performance was somewhat lax.

The later games of the NHL Premiere in Stockholm provided a split in the win/loss column, but since Ottawa lost the first game in overtime, the Sens have a 1-point advantage on Pittsburgh in the Standings, but both trail the Rangers in the standings, since they won both their games. Nevertheless, the fans in Stockholm got a good treat, watching some of the NHL's best players play some pretty good hockey.

The Senators led a good portion of the scoring at the end of it all. Dany Heatley finished the two game set with three goals, while defenseman Filip Kuba had four assists. For Pittsburgh, four players finished with two points a piece: Sidney Crosby, Tyler Kennedy, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury. Scoring should be abundant from these two teams this season and they will likely be very popular when the draft goes down on Tuesday.

Poll Question
There are two poll questions, still technically active, but they'll get review in the first newsletter of the season. In the two polls, I wanted to know who you think the top rated goaltender is and who the top rated defenseman is. With the my draft coming up on Tuesday, I am a little curious to see what the general consensus would be for the first player in these positions to be taken. In previous polls this summer, we found that Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin all would populate the top three picks, which shouldn't come as any surprise.

In net, it was quite the mix of talent that garnered votes. Coming out on top, by a very small margin, was last year's top goalie, Evgeni Nabokov. Of 34 votes (with hours remaining on the poll), Nabokov snagged 25% of the vote. Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Brodeur were not too far behind though, snagging 17% each.

On the blueline, it was a slightly different story. Nicklas Lidstrom ran away with the voting, receiving 14 of the 30 votes, while Dion Phaneuf received 7. There was some love for each of the other candidates, but those two were the clear favourites.

The poll for Week Two will surround this year's rookie crop. Who will be the top rookie this season?

Well, since we don't have any pools officially 100% on the go quite yet, there isn't going to be a Mover & Shaker award this week, but I will take this opportunity to let you know that during the season, there will be hockey card prizes each week for the Draft's Mover & Shaker, which there will be 27 more weeks of this season. I've been picking out cards, jersey cards & other assorted inserts, to hand out as weekly prizes, nothing too extravagant, but hopefully something to work towards.

Cards will include some of the young superstars of the league and some hall of famers. There will hopefully be a few more rookie cards in there of our up & coming stars of the game and then there will be definitely a few young stars that you've already tried to pick on your draft team. Hopefully, a few prizes makes the rest of the season a little more exciting for everyone.

There was a tie for the first Player of the Week award, but the only tie-breaker I could find was that of having a picture of the player, or else I would have gone with the our other 4-point player this past weekend. Oh well, can't win them all I guess.

For winning both games for the Rangers this weekend, Henrik Lundqvist becomes our Player of the Week, tied for the lead in pool scoring with 4 points. Lundqvist made 39 stops between the two games, taking an even 1.00 GAA back to North America with a .949 save percentage. Lundqvist should be a first round pick in tomorrow night's pool draft and he'll likely spark whoever picks them into a share of the early lead.

Just for argument's sake, the other player tied for this honour was Ottawa's Filip Kuba, but I'll be damned if I could find a picture of him so far this season.

For the most part, if there was a bulk category for Cold Player of the Week, it would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. Both Mike Smith and Olaf Kolzig played well in net, but the rest of th team only managed one goal in each game, which won't win you many hockey games these days.

Other News and Notes

If you wanted to have Dan Fristche in your Selection Sheet pool line-up, you may want to take into account that he didn't start either game in Prague for the Rangers. Fritsche was a healthy scratch in the 24-man line-up. He may not have much fantasy value overall if he continues to sit, so bench him on your fantasy team and maybe wait and see if you haven't drafted yet.

The Sens missed the services of Mike Fisher in both games in Stockholm versus the Penguins. Fisher is considered to be out day-to-day with a groin strain, but will have a good number of days off while the team travels back to North America from their European tour.

Much like his European opponent above, Petr Sykora also missed both games against Ottawa with a groin injury. Sykora missed out on a pair of games and should be considered day-to-day as well.

Only in the second game of the European opener did defenseman Shane O'Brien sit out for the Lightning. O'Brien was a -1 in the opener against the Rangers and the coaching staff decided to put Mike Lundin in the line-up for some better puck moving.

Click here to see an updated injury page.



Hockey Night in Canada resumes coverage on Thursday night, sans the anthem, with a doubleheader. They will open up the North American regular season in Detroit, as the Red Wings will raise their Cup banner to the rafters and then take on the Montreal Canadiens, which could be considered a preview of this year's Cup Finals. In Game 2 of the doubleheader, we'll be headed to Vancouver, where the Canucks will open up their season against the Flames. In total on Thursday, there will only be four games in the league.

On Saturday, the Canadiens will be in Toronto for the first game of the doubleheader, while the Flames will host Vancouver in the second game. We'll be getting our fill of Habs, Flames and Canucks on HNIC this weekend.