Week Fourteen Newsletter

Greetings to 2009... it's the first Newsletter of the year. Everything seems to be rather tightly knit together this season, both in the NHL standings and in the pool standings. Week Fourteen is now finished, which means we've now reached the midpoint of the season and now have fourteen weeks left to go. How exciting! Can you believe we are already halfway through the year?

Well, much like the Week Fifteen newsletter last year, which was the first of 2008, I thought I would quickly recap how the pools have been looking.

In the Draft, John B. has had the lead or a share of the lead for nine of the fourteen weeks this year, including having the lead for the past six weeks. That does bode well, as there is generally a strong correlation for a long lead through the year and a win by the end. What is a bit different though, is that his lead is only 10 points at this point and is only 21 to 3rd place, so the season is far from over there. Clayton, Benson, John P. have all shared money spots in the past little while and they have four teams hot on their heels. Lots of movement can still happen there, especially with another Waiver Draft due in four weeks.

On the Sheet, the top five money teams have all eclipsed the 800-point mark, which does have some separation from the rest of the field. With trades and half a season to go, nothing is complete or secure at this point. We could still see a big jump from some surprising team or players, not to mention the possibility of injuries. Dale C., Paul, Wes, Mike E. and Tim are all locked into the money now, but where they all finish fourteen weeks from now is still to be decided.

As the weeks go by, the season does seem to get more and more exciting. Be sure to keep up-to-date with the newsletters and blog, just to see how your players are fareing.

Poll Question
Well, the poll question was a bit of a two-pronged attack. Were you looking forward to the Winter Classic was the opening question that started on Monday, which 6 out of 7 said yes, while what could be those same 6 people came out and said that they enjoyed the Winter Classic in the second poll that was posted right after the game. The seventh person obviously didn't even watch the game to try and enjoy it. Oh well.

This week, it is expected that Mats Sundin will be joining the Canucks' line-up for the first time since signing his deal at the end of December. It is expected of him to be in the line-up for Wednesday's game in Edmonton or possibly not until the team arrives home for Friday's game against St. Louis. How will the Canucks fare with Sundin in the line-up?

I suppose Benson can stop with his whining and complaining about not having a Mover & Shaker award this year. Yes, he had come close over the past month or so, a couple times, but his team just wasn't good enough, until now. Actually, Week Fourteen was a great week for Benson, as he made his way into a money position, hopping into third place, but he also tied the season-high record for a week of 44 points. That's a pretty solid effort, one that will earn him a M&S prize this week of a Jay Bouwmeester Gold Card from Upper Deck's Victory Set. Benson might not have Bouwmeester on his team, but it's still a pretty decent card. Next week, the prizes get amped up a little bit, as up for grabs after Week Fifteen is a Tiger Williams jersey patch card.

Having a productive week for Benson in Week Fourteen were Ty Conklin (6 points), Todd Bertuzzi (5), Mark Streit (5) and four others with 4 points each. Only one player didn't manage to get Benson a point in the week and that was Marc Staal of the Rangers. Staal is also the only active player on his team to not have more than 10 points, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when he drops Staal in the second Waiver Draft.

His productive week also moved him up from 7th to 3rd, which is a mighty big jump, but just shows you how close the race actually is. Since the first Waiver Draft five weeks ago, Benson leads the pool with 170 points, only 17 off his whole production before the Waiver Draft. Before the Waiver Draft, he was down in 13th position and picking up both Ty Conklin and Todd White was a huge step forward.

On the Sheet, it was kind of a non-descript kind of week. Four teams moved up three positions, four teams moved up two, while nine moved up one. No team really did much moving up or more than the others. So, we're going to have to go with points and our week-high in points was 72 by Jeff's team. He was the clear winner in weekly points, by two, and he was one of the four teams that moved up three positions, him up to 9th from 12th. That's a pretty good week, inching ever-closer to the money positions. Having a productive week for Jeff were Jarome Iginla (6 points), Brian Rafalski (6), Miikka Kiprusoff (6), Todd Bertuzzi (5) and five others with 4 points each. That's a pretty solid week and he still has four trades to burn this season. Things are looking up for Jeff.

In the Basement this week, for the third time this season is Derek. Actually, since the Waiver Draft, Derek has actually enjoyed some success, being better than the middle of the pack since Week Nine. Unfortunately, Week Fourteen didn't really agree with his team. Derek's team only managed 13 points in the week. It was a collective effort by all of his players, four not registering a point, seven players only managed a single point, while the other three had 2 points each. His two Waiver pick-ups, Dwayne Roloson and Devin Setoguchi have been pretty good since being picked up, but he also needs to make sure Evgeni Malkin continues his league-leading way.

In the Basement of the Sheet pool for Week Fourteen it was a combination of both a low weekly point total and drop in the Standings. This week, Neil fits the bill again, dropping four places in the standings to 28th spot by only registering 45 points. On his active players list, Neil had 12 players without a point in Week Fourteen, which has definitely hurt his chances of not being in the basement, obviously. It's been a pretty up-and-down season for Neil, who has shared some good weeks with some bad weeks, this one being the second sub 50-point week in the last four weeks. Neil still has five trades to use, so hopefully he'll bust those out sooner, rather than later.

Week Fourteen brought our first Waiver Draft player to win the Player of the Week award. It was actually quite the incredible streak we saw from Steve Mason of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Including a couple games in Week Thirteen, Mason had a shutout streak of 199 minutes and 19 seconds, two of those shutouts actually coming in Week Fourteen. Mason finished up the week with a record of 3-1-0 for 10 points.

Clayton's Waiver Draft pick-up has played pretty well this season, having 13 wins and 5 shutouts since joining the club mid-season. Since being picked up in the second round of the Waiver Draft, Mason has picked up 8 wins and 3 shutouts for 22 points.

During the week, Mason shutout both the Kings on Monday and the Ducks on Wednesday, he beat the Avalanche on Friday, but couldn't pull out a win against the Blues on Saturday. Mason is supposed to get the start in net for the Blue Jackets on Tuesday this week to try and start a new streak.

It's been a pretty rough time for Jean-Sebastien Giguere in Anaheim and the Ducks in general. The Ducks have only won three games in the last three weeks, but Giguere didn't register any of them. Giguere's last win came on December 14th against the Wild. This season, Giguere only has 11 wins and 2 shutouts, which is a far cry from where he usually is and the Ducks are not quite in the race for the Pacific Division lead, like they have been in the past few years. It's unclear how Giguere earned All-Star starting line-up honours with these poor-ish numbers, but he'll be there.

Other News and Notes

On Saturday night, the NHL front office came down on Ducks' forward, Corey Perry, as they suspended him for 4 games because of an elbow thrown in Anaheim's game against the Flyers on Friday. Perry, a Draft pick of Ryan's, has served the first game of his suspension on Sunday and won't be eligible to return to the line-up until Sunday, when the Ducks host the Devils.

The Atlanta Thrashers and John P. lost the services of Bryan Little on Saturday, which is being diagnosed as a rib injury. The coaching staff of the Thrashers are not very confident that the injury is minor, rather something major, possibly keeping Little out of the line-up for weeks. Little, a Waiver Draft pick-up, has 12 points in 17 games since being picked by John in the past five weeks.

On Saturday night, the Hurricanes were without the services of Box 24 forward, Patrick Eaves, as he sat out with an upper body injury. Eaves has been the subject of many injuries over his career and has become less and less of a good bet in fantasy pools. If at all possible, you may want to remove him from any future lists. Despite his talent, it doesn't seem like he'll play all 82 games of any given season.

The Blackhawks were without the services of Patrick Kane for their game against the Flames on Sunday. Kane, a Draft pick of Dale B.'s, injured his ankle during the Winter Classic in the week and did not feel that the ankle was good enough to suit up against Calgary. There is no immediate word as to how much time he'll miss with the injury, but he will likely give his ankle a try early in the week to test it out.

The Blue Jackets are expecting to be without Box 2 forward and John B. Draft pick, Kristian Huselius, as he has suffered an upper body injury. Huselius was checked hard to the head on Saturday night against the Blues and is now believed to be suffering from concussion-like symptoms. If these reports are true, Huselius will be out of the line-up for at least a week, possibly more, depending on the results of some tests. Huselius has 25 points in 38 games for the Blue Jackets this year.

After only returning for one game on the weekend, Anton Volchenkov was scratched from the Senators line-up, as he appeared to have aggravated his injured shoulder. It is likely that he wasn't 100% when he returned to the line-up and there was a little bit of discomfort in his return. The Box 29 defender will likely be out of the line-up for a while longer.

Plenty of Flyers have been in and out of the line-up recently. On Saturday night in Anaheim, they decided against dressing Box 21 forward, Joffrey Lupul and Box 25 forward Claude Giroux. Lupul has been having a relatively decent season thus far, scoring 13 goals and adding 12 assists in 38 games, but has suffered a lower body injury in the past few days, so he's not good to go. Giroux has spent a great deal of the season in the minors already, but was the recipient of Corey Perry's elbow on Friday night, dealing him a head injury and a possible concussion.

The Coyotes are still in the thick of the playoff hunt, sitting in 6th in the West, but they are still seemingly trying to find their identity with their youth. On Sunday, Daniel Carcillo figured back into the line-up against the Ducks, while Kyle Turris was a healthy scratch again this season. The coaching staff hasn't been afraid of benching players this season, if they haven't been giving 100%. Turris was considered one of the premier rookies to be joining the team this season, but has turned out to be a bit of a flop with only 12 points in 37 games. By no means are they horrible numbers, I believe more was expected out of the youngster this year.

On Saturday, the Lightning coaching staff decided to scratch Jussi Jokinen from the line-up. His production has dropped off quite a bit this season and the scratch was likely to light a fire under him to get going again. On Sunday, he returned to the line-up and registered an assist, which is definitely something. Derek needed that assist in the Draft, granted he could use just about anything, right about now. This season, Jokinen has 15 points in 38 games with the Lightning.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

Hockey Night in Canada

It's the night of opportunities on HNIC coming up on Saturday. The coverage is three games wide in the early game; Toronto is in Philly, Washington is in Montreal and the Rangers are in Ottawa. Now, the coverage could be really easy to figure out, but the CBC website still hasn't officially decided which games will go where, as they are known for splitting them up in odd ways once and a while. All three games sure have their own merits, but Washington/Montreal does have the most appeal to it, I think, as it should be a pretty fast game with plenty of scoring. Who doesn't like to watch Alexander Ovechkin? In the late game, it's much easier to figure out, as CBC is only carrying the Canucks hosting the Sharks. San Jose is doing a Northwest Division swing this week and it finishes off on the coast, as Joe Thornton will likely take on Mats Sundin, in Sundin's first HNIC out of a Leafs' uniform. Mats probably saw a Hockey Night with the Nordiques, so it likely won't be his first HNIC out of a Leafs' uniform ever, but the first in a long, long time.