Week Six Newsletter

There wasn't much doubt as to where the Headline was going to go this week. The mass exodus of dropping Martin Brodeur from Sheet teams was quite the grabber of attention. The word coming down last weekend saying that Brodeur would be out for upwards of four months did scare quite a few people from keeping him. The possibility of not coming back until Week Twenty-Two would be more than enough to keep him from my line-up... and it is!

The Box 31 keeper has officially been dropped eight times in Week Six, to take effect in Week Seven, and this is well before the puck drop cut-off of Monday. It is expected to see a few more trades before then through the day.

The most popular choice when dropping Brodeur was picking up Henrik Lundqvist in New York, but Marc-Andre Fleury, Carey Price and Ryan Miller also made appearances on the trade list. A few pool teams also made the move to pick up Kevin Weekes from Box 32, dropping their back-up there to pick him up, as he'll likely get a good number of starts or get bumped back to being the back-up if the Devils make the move for someone new.

A rough week on the poll... only eight votes. Maybe those Draft-oriented poll questions are not in the Newsletter's best interest. Nevertheless, I guess I better run through it.

Brandon Dubinsky and Devin Setoguchi were the favourites of the seven options, but just barely. Each of them received two votes, while Todd White in Atlanta didn't get any. White, tied for the lead in points for available players, shouldn't be a surprise in not getting any votes, he does reside in with the Thrashers and they don't get any or much press at all in the Canada.

White and teammate Brian Little in Atlanta, lead all available players for the Waiver Draft with 15 points. Something to consider for Week Nine. The top defenseman is Christian Ehrhoff in San Jose with 12 points and the top goalie is Brian Boucher, also of San Jose, with 10 points.

For Week Seven, let's look at the New Jersey Devils situation in the crease. Now that Martin Brodeur is out of action for the next little while, how well will the Devils fare in his absence?

Well, top points in the week has led to top spot in the Draft. The Mover & Shaker in this low-scoring week was John B., who fell short of the Week Three honours (by a tie-breaker), but came back with a vengeance with 36 points in the week, seven better than second place.

John saw lots of production from all but two players on his team, Duncan Keith and Manny Legace. On the plus side, Ryan Getzlaf had 5 points, Anze Kopitar had 4, Ray Whitney had 4, Tobias Enstrom had 4 and Evgeni Nabokov had 4. Any other player that had points, had at least two, which bodes well for your team, if that's the kind of production you're getting. It should be pretty certain that you'd be in first place with a week like that.

For the M&S win this week, John will be receiving a Jarome Iginla Gamebreakers card for his prize. During the week, John P. received his Henrik Sedin card and was quite thrilled to have his prize. Prizes still to be delivered are to Marcus and Larry, who took weekly honours this season as well.

The slow scoring week also hit the Sheet pretty bad. The top scoring team only managed 52 points and managed to climb 8 spots in the Standings. Ernest, a previous Basement Dweller, finally got his team to move ahead, moving from 40th spot after Week Four to 26th spot after Week Six. That's some good moving and shaking. Having big weeks for Ernest was Roberto Luongo (12 points), Jarome Iginla (5), Mike Fisher (5) and two others with 3 points. Yes, it was a very slow week.

It was a pretty sad week for Benson in the Draft. His awfully low 14 points dropped him near the bottom of the pool, yet to crack the 100-point barrier. His low week has now dropped him to 15th of 17 in the Draft, only 3 points ahead of 16th and 4 points ahead of 17th. Half of Benson's team failed to register a point in Week Six, while his best player was Todd Bertuzzi, who finished the week with 4 points. Injuries to Jonathan Cheechoo, Johan Franzen and Rick DiPietro could all be considered as big reasons why Benson has failed to do well this year.

In the Basement of the Sheet was Matt, who dropped to 39th spot after a 11 position fall, thanks to a sub-par 23-point effort. Matt was the first person in the Sheet pool's short history to start the season by only taking players from one team in the West (Detroit) and one team in the East (Montreal). In a week where the teams were very short on the number of games, it won't help his chances at getting big points. Having the two team system in the Sheet pool has many disadvantages, including not necessarily picking the best player in some of the mediocre boxes and just hoping that secondary scoring happens for both teams. Trades can help, but there are only seven of them to use.

I don't know, but I sure do like no-brainer decisions when handing out these awards. Week Six's Player of the Week was certainly just that. Roberto Luongo finished the week with a shutout streak sitting at over 201 minutes, as he recorded three consecutive shutouts, which earned him 12 points.

In three games at home this week, the Canucks' captain shutout the Predators on Tuesday, the Coyotes on Thursday and the Wild on Saturday. This pads Luongo's league lead in shuouts by those three he picked up in the week, as he sits at five for the year. Luongo also now leads all pool players with 29 points this season, a 7-point lead over second place.

In the Draft, John P. has been gladly accepting all those points. Luongo accounted for about 40% of John's points in the week and he had a pretty good week, sitting in second place. In the Sheet, Luongo is a very popular goalie and lots of teams took on his big points.

This is Luongo's second trip to the Player of the Week column, which shouldn't be a surprise. His shutouts have been lifting his stock higher and higher.

The Sharks are in pretty good shape at the top of the Pacific Division, but it's no thanks to Jonathan Cheechoo, who has finished this past week on the shelf with an upper body injury and zero points. Cheechoo only has 7 points in 14 games for San Jose and it's proving to be a tough time for the former 56-goal scorer. In the Draft, Benson has suffered with Cheechoo's inability to score and an injury won't help his cause any either.

Other News and Notes

The Hurricanes have kept forward Patrick Eaves out of the line-up with an undisclosed injury. Eaves, a Box 25 forward, missed the last few games for the Hurricanes, including Sunday's game against Atlanta. The Hurricanes have struggled with injuries this season, already having Matt Cullen, Brandon Sutter, Joni Pitkanen and Frank Kaberle.

The Blue Jackets didn't have forward Kristian Huselius in their line-up thanks to a foot injury. Huselius was not able to play his former team, the Flames, in Columbus' 3-1 win on Saturday night. Huselius, a Draft pick of John B., is only supposed to be out on a day-to-day basis and shouldn't miss too many games in the coming days. The Blue Jackets are also without Rostislav Klesla, with what is now described as a wrist injury, instead of a healthy scratch. Klesla is also listed as out day-to-day.

The Colorado Avalanche had Joe Sakic return to the line-up, but with a couple of the call-ups playing well in their return or debut to the line-up, it was Tyler Arnason who was a healthy scratch for the team. So far this season, Arnason only has 2 goals in 13 games for the team, which has seemingly earned him his spot in the press box. Arnason is a Box 8 forward that you may want to avoid this season.

In Detroit, the Red Wings sat Brett Lebda on Saturday. Lebda hasn't registered a point in the 11 games he's played in this season, which is mighty strange, considering the team he's playing on. A rest could be a good kick in the pants for the defender, as the team will need to save all their healthy bodies for when the older ones start to break down a little.

Despite players returning to the line-up this week, the Panthers still seem to be having some injury troubles. New on the list over the weekend is Box 24 forward, Kamil Kreps. Kreps suffered a concussion, much like teammate, Cory Stillman, and will be considered otu day-to-day. I don't think many in the Sheet pool recoginized that name enough to pick him, so we won't worry too much about him.

A surprise scratch (because there is no injury word) on Saturday was Roman Hamrlik. Hamrlik, who was a -2 on Friday night in the loss to Columbus, must have fallen into the doghouse with the Montreal coaching staff, which is the only recognizable reason as to why he didn't crack the line-up against the Leafs on Saturday. Watch out for Hamrlik trade rumours through the week, as the Habs have already been knee deep in rumours this season.

The Predators found themselves unlucky on the weekend, without the services of Martin Erat. The team is carefully guarding Erat's condition, not even disclosing what the injury could be. The word is that he is out on a day-to-day basis. He'll likely be re-evaluated before each game to see if he can go.

The Predators have also scratched defenseman Ville Koistinen from their line-up over the weekend. Koistinen has a goal in 7 games for the Preds and has been in and out of the line-up quite a few times. With the top blueliners putting up some big numbers in Nashville, Koistinen gets lost in the shuffle a little.

The Devils are having their fair share of injury troubles this season. Already without Martin Brodeur, Brian Rolston and Paul Martin, the team was also without Brian Gionta and Bryce Salvador on Sunday night against the Oilers. Gionta is out day-to-day with a head injury, while Salvador is out day-to-day with a foot injury. The depth in New Jersey is sure to be challenged over the next week or so.

Flyers had the return of Daniel Briere on Saturday, but it wasn't enough to have the Flyers win on Saturday night. Briere, a Draft pick of Don's, scored a goal in his return, but the Flyers are still without some key defensemen, Keith Jones and Ryan Parent.

The Coyotes have been fairly good hockey of late and the line-up has been shuffled on a semi-regular basis of late. The Coyotes scratched two Sheet defenders over the weeekend, David Hale and Ken Klee, while trying to find a good balance of talent to go forward with. These two scratches obviously helped a little, as the team beat the Sharks on Sunday night, one of the best teams in the league.

After the deal that brought Andrei Nikulin to town, the Coyotes founda good home for him with their minor-league affiliate. Nikulin should find some full-time work there, which was what he wanted from Ottawa before demanding a trade and the Coyotes may get a look at him with the big club, depending on the injury situation later on in the year.

The Sharks kept rolling along this week, despite losing Jonathan Cheechoo to an upper body injury. Cheechoo, who has been struggling of late, suffered the injury mid-week and didn't play in either of the weekend games for San Jose. The injury is supposedly minor and shouldn't keep him out of the line-up for too long.

Box 30 defenseman, Mike Van Ryn was obliterated in the Leafs game against the Canadiens by Tom Kostopoulos on Saturday night. Van Ryn has now been listed as out for at least a month with a concussion, broken nose and broken hand. Of course, the concussion will be the biggest concern for the Leafs, as Van Ryn has been one of the best players on the blueline for Toronto. If Van Ryn feels better within a month, then it will be good news for Toronto, but if you have him on the Sheet, you may want to move him, just in case.

Finally, the Capitals were without Sergei Fedorov on Saturday night, as he left Friday's contest with a lower body injury. Still no word as to the severity of the injury, but it couldn't be too bad, as he's listed as out day-to-day as well. If there are any major updates on his status, it will sure to be posted this week.

Click here to see an updated injury page.


It's an early game in Vancouver on Saturday night, as the Canucks finish off their homestand with a visit from the Leafs. The Canucks, who came off three straight shutouts this week, only play twice in Week Seven, including this Hockey Night In Canada match-up. The late game on Saturday night will see the Colorado Avalanche in Edmonton to take on the Oilers in another Northwest Divsion tilt. The Avalanche and Oilers are trying to stay afloat in their division, which has proven to be another tough task again this season. It looks like we're in for one hell of a weekend of hockey again.