Week Eight Newsletter

Good morning Week Nine! It's Waiver Draft time in the Draft Pool, which is an exciting week, because this is the last week you'll have all your crappy players (well two of them, anyways) sitting with thumbs up their bum and not getting any points for you. This morning (Monday), we'll be commencing the dropping and picking up of players in a Draft style, according to the finalized standings after Week Eight's action. Some teams gained some positions in the standings, which dropped their pool pick a spot or two and some lost some spots in the standings, which gained them a position or two in the draft.

With this Waiver Draft, teams like Grant's or Derek's will be hoping to get themselves back in the race for some credibility with their opponents this season. There is still twenty weeks left in the season and hope shouldn't be lost quite yet. If it took only nine weeks to widen the gap from first to last to 67 points, it should just as easily be closed in that time as well.

So, to help your selections out here this week, I have prepared some web pages for you for assistance. First off, the Waiver Draft list has been attached to the standings page, this is where you can see a live update of how the Draft is going. This has the official draft order for this week and will have the current picks as they happen through the week. If you need to know the top players available in the Draft, you can click on that link, which is also attached to the Standings page. It hasn't been updated as of the publishing time, but it will be updated fairly soon. Also, if you wanted to have an idea of who is available at what time's this week, I thought I would prepare a mock draft on Friday, which should give you somewhat of an idea of what to expect this week. So, hopefully everyone is on board here and we'll get this done fairly soon.

Good luck everyone!

Poll Question
I was pretty happy to see another 11 votes on the poll this week, as it asked about which team you felt was the best all-around team in the league. From it's six selections, it was a runaway for the San Jose Sharks, taking the title. It shouldn't come as a surprise, as they do sit on top of the league standings with 35 points in 21 games, while not having their number one goalie in net for the past week and a bit. Generally, when you think about an all-around team, you think of how good they are at every position. The back-up goalie should count in that thought process, even though you rarely get to see him in some cases. Brian Boucher should be a goalie taken in this week's Waiver Draft, just like a number of his teammates, some of which were surprisingly overlooked at the initial Draft in October.

For Week Nine, I thought I would re-open the Mats Sundin case, as his return to the league seems to gain momentum with each passing day and/or week. I would like to know, where do you think he's going to land when he eventually puts pen to paper.

It was a little bit of a lower-scoring week again in the league, as we only hit 406 pool points in total, but our Mover & Shaker still hit 37 points in the week and managed to move up 4 places in the Draft standings to 3rd and claim his prize for the week. Peter overtook some pretty good competition in Week Eight to earn his spot in the money positions this week and for his efforts, he earns a Vincent Lecavalier over-sized card from Upper Deck's Victory set, which is a pretty nice looking card, I must say.

Moving from 7th to 3rd in Week Eight means that the competition is pretty tight going down the line and you need some pretty good players to keep up that sort of pace through the year to keep yourself in the money. For Peter, his big players in the week were Marc Savard (8 points), Patrik Elias (7), Brian Gionta (6), Patrice Bergeron (4) and Ales Hemsky (4). All five of those players have been pretty good so far in the year and once Peter fills out his goaltending, he'll have himself one good cracking line-up for the rest of the season.

On the Sheet, it was a pretty good week for Mike B., who finished off Week Eight with 71 points, which moved him up 7 spots in the standings as well. Mike, who has yet to make a trade this season, improved to 11th spot in the standings with his monster week, a week that was 7 points better than his nearest competitor. That's mighty impressive. With a couple clever trades, he might be worthy of a money position this season, but he could be on a wait-and-see basis with some of his lesser players. His big stars in the week were Jiri Hudler (6 points), Miikka Kiprusoff (6), Ty Conklin (6) and Alex Ovechkin (6). He managed quite a bit of production from a number of his players, which is what you're looking for in this pool and making sure you don't have many anchors to keep you down.

Dwelling in the basement after this week is somewhat of a mixed blessing, as the Standings after this week give you your Drafting spot in the Waiver Draft for Week Nine. Dropping down from 9th to 12th this week, thus making him the sixth pick in the Waiver Draft was Don, after a pool-low 13 points in the week. Don saw six of his players fail to register a point in the week, two of those were due to injury (Daniel Briere and Marc-Andre Fleury). Don's best player in the week was Oilers defenseman, Tom Gilbert, who finished the week with 3 points. It will be interesting to see what Don does this week in the Waiver Draft, as he'll have plenty of options with the sixth pick, as there is plenty of scoring available.

From M&S to the Basement, Riley thought he had himself a much better team after the number of trades he made a couple weeks ago, but it wasn't enough to keep him from having the worst seven days in the Sheet pool in Week Eight. Riley only managed 35 points this week, 3 less than his closest competitor, and he moved down 7 spots to 40th, only 4 spots from last place in the pool. Surely, he can do much better than that. Riley had 15 active zeros on his team this past week, which is way too many if you're trying to get out of the bottom of the Standings. Some of his traded players had better weeks than his new acquisitions, which has got to be somewhat disheartening. Better luck next week!

It was a clear-cut winner this week for the Player of the Week and it comes as no surprise that he was part of the Moving & Shaking team of the week as well. Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins takes the honour with a big week of 8 points for Boston. Boston, on the shoulders of Savard, have risen to the top of the Eastern Conference standings, second to only San Jose in the league standings.

In four games this week, Marc Savard registered 2 goals and 6 assists for the Bruins, which included a 4-point night against the Sabres on Wednesday, during a 7-4 win. In that game, Savard had a goal and three assists, as the Bruins stomped on their division rivals. Savard is now tied for third in pool scoring overall with 27 points and has quickly earned himself a lot more credibility in Boston as one of the elite players in the league. It does make Boston an early contender for some big hardware at the end of the year.

Rockin' the cold boat this week is the Montreal Canadiens... Alex Tanguay, Tomas Plekanec and Christopher Higgins didn't adjust to the line-swapping very well and all saw zero points in the week's worth of production. All three are taken in the Draft and did nothing for their pool teams this week, which also hurt the Habs in the standings, as the team went 1-1-1 in their scoring absence. The Habs should be a very high-scoring team, which does make them great fantasy players, but when there are zeros on the board, they aren't likely to win as many games as they'd prefer.

Other News and Notes

The Ducks had enough of Brendan Morrison's lackluster player of late and finally decided to make him a healthy scratch on Saturday night against the Stars. This season, Morrison has only has 4 points (2G, 2A) in 21 games for the Ducks, which is a far cry from the numbers he was producing in his hay day in Vancouver. He hasn't been placed on any of the top lines, which could be the cause of his lack of production, but he hasn't been able to produce with the linemates he has and that's the big reason for the scratch.

Thanks to a lack of defensive effort in the first eight weeks of the season, both Maxim Afinogenov and Henrik Tallinder were forced to the press box for the weekend, missing out on both the Friday and Saturday games. Afinogenov, a Draft pick of Wes, is also a candidate to be dropped this week, because his offensive output has been poor as well, scoring only a goal and 7 assists in 18 games this year. Afinogenov is supposed to be better this year on a talented team.

The Stars are trying to find their old identity this season and their blueline is getting shuffled to do so. This weekend, it was Matt Niskanen, a Box 11 defender, who found his way to the press box for a game. Niskanen only has 2 points in 18 games for the Stars and his defensive play has been questionable, as he's a -7 on the year so far.

Rostislav Olesz was held out of the Panthers' line-up this weekend as a healthy scratch, but he's been injured once or twice this year already and likely needed some rest. Olesz only has 5 points (2G, 3A) in 17 games for the Panthers, which isn't great production on a team that needs some offense while some of their key players are away with injury.

The Canadiens lost the services of Roman Hamrlik on Saturday night when an errant puck was deflected up into his face and around his eye. Hamrlik, a Draft pick of Marcus', has 5 points in 18 games for Montreal this year, which is awfully low for a guy like Hamrlik. If he has to miss a significant amount of time, his fantasy value will take a big hit, but the Habs are hoping for some better news.

The Devils missed one of their better centres on the weekend, as John Madden, a Box 21 forward, was out of the line-up with a foot injury. Madden hasn't been a big force for the Devils offensively, as he's only picked up 8 points in 18 games this year, but his defensive play is what makes him so valuable. Madden is definitely one of the better face-off men in the league.

The Coyotes' blueline took a pretty big hit as they lost Derek Morris to an undisclosed injury after blocking a shot early in the weekend. Morris, a Draft pick of Wes (yes, another one), logs a lot of minutes for the young Coyotes team, but he isn't much of a fantasy player, as he only has 2 points in 18 games this season. He'll likely be dropped at the Waiver Draft, unless injuries have gotten the best of some of his other players.

Rookie forward, Patrik Berglund, a Box 8 forward for the Blues, suffered a groin injury, which kept him out of the line-up on Saturday night. Berglund has registered 5 goals and 5 assists in 15 games for St. Louis this year, which should have him in somewhat of the running for some rookie hardware at the end of the year. Berglund needs a quick recovery to make sure he is okay to continue his reasonable scoring pace.

Injury problems continue for Wes, even on this newsletter, as Mike Smith, Tampa's 1a goalie, was scratched from Sunday's game against the Devils, with what is being described as a lower body injury. The Lightning called up Kari Ramo to back-up Olaf Kolzig for the game. Smith has 869 minutes of play under his belt this season and has chalked up 5 wins with a shutout and an assist for 13 points. The Lightning hope the injury isn't serious, as he is expected to take the bulk of the minutes.

In Washington, the return of Sergei Fedorov to the line-up saw Eric Fehr head back to the press box as a healthy scratch again. Fehr has now played in 9 games for Washington, only picking up 3 points. His spot in Box 25 of the Sheet isn't thought to be very valuable this season and should not be considered for picking, even as a trade this year.

Click here to see an updated injury page.


I totally missed the boat last weekend, as it was a tripleheader on CBC, which I'd usually make a big deal of, because that means a lot more hockey on TV for all of us. Oh well. This week should be a good week for Hockey Night in Canada, as the early game sees Philadelphia travel to Toronto to take on the Leafs. The Flyers have been a pretty solid team and a fun one to watch this season, while the hard working Leafs will do their best to curb their scoring. That should be a fun match-up. In the second half, the Canucks will go to Calgary to take on the Flames in the second half of a home & home series, where the Flames will visit Vancouver on Thursday. There still isn't word on Roberto Luongo's status for Vancouver, but it should still be an excellent match-up whether he's in the line-up or not.