Second Waiver Draft Complete

Well, we finally got it all done! It only took until Saturday afternoon to get there, but here we have it. The rosters will now be set on Monday and all of these players will be active for our pool teams for the games on Monday night. Also, I should have the pool draft order with this year's points as well, just so we can compare all of our picks and how they've fared in each round. That should be interesting, stay tuned to the standings for that link to be active.

First up in the final set of picks, Benson decided to drop Marc Staal of the Rangers in order to pick up Fedor Tyutin of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Staal turned out to be more of a defensive specialist, which doesn't help fantasy pools, especially when they rely on goals and assists. Tyutin, on the other hand, has enjoyed a lot more offensive success on a Blue Jackets team that is pushing for their first playoff berth.

Also coming from the Blue Jackets is the next pick, Mike Commodore, who was taken by Marcus, which completes a purely blueline upgrade in this Waiver Draft. For this pick, Marcus dropped Wade Redden, who has been a big disappointment offensively in the Big Apple as well. That made back-to-back Ranger drops for Blue Jackets. I doubt you ever thought you'd see the day that two Rangers were dropped for two Blue Jackets, but there you go. It happened!

Well, here we have Dainius Zubrus, who fell all the way down to the 30th slot in the Draft, which is surprising, because he is having one whale of a season in New Jersey. In 50 games with the Devils, Zubrus has 29 points, including 11 goals. Ryan picked him up in exchange for Christopher Higgins, who has had problems with injuries this season and only has 10 points.

Taking a big gamble with the poorly Ottawa Senators, Clayton dropped Peter Budaj of the Avalanche for Brian Elliot, who has taken over a lot of minutes in the Senators nets. With Martin Gerber sent down to the minors, Elliot will have his chance to shine for the Sens, which could mean some good things for Clayton. Budaj has lost a lot of minutes to Andrew Raycroft in Colorado, so, it can't be a big difference either way.

Jeremy tried to ensure that his defense corps is healthy down the stretch by taking Marc-Andre Bergeron of the Wild, as he dropped Paul Martin of the Devils to make room for him. Bergeron has missed games this season, but also carries a better points-per-game ratio than Martin, who has also missed time this year.

Our final pick, which we waited for until today, we saw Peter drop R.J. Umberger of the high-flying Blue Jackets for Alex Ponikarovsky, the tradable forward from the rebuilding Maple Leafs. This may be an over-simplification, but it is a little curious. In actual fact, Umberger hasn't been the biggest offensive force in Columbus, especially for how much they paid for him. Ponikarovsky is primed to move to a new team here before March 4th, which could be beneficial for Peter.