Sunday, February 06, 2011

Finishing Up the Waiver Draft

First off, I allowed the revocation of the waiver draft pick from Peter H., who hasn't been heard from or seen in the past week, so a move to drop an injured player for a healthy player was made.  As circumstances have gone, the injured player to be dropped was Steve Sullivan, who was activated on Saturday, so he's good to go, while the player being picked up, Blake Comeau, suffered a concussion and will be out.  Officially, Peter has passed both of his picks, since he has a fairly healthy team otherwise.

Polishing off the 1st round of the second waiver draft, Kristy and Don didn't really have a lot to do with their team, as their team has been proving to be pretty good through the middle of the year.  A tweak on their blueline was made though, as they dropped Jaroslav Spacek, who isn't going quite as well as one would think in Montreal, picking up Fedor Tyutin, who is has been marginally better.  This is really more of a lateral move, but when there is little left and a pretty good team, that's about all one can do.

Ending the 1st round was Allan S., who dropped a Blue Jacket in Antoine Vermette, who has been underachieving in Columbus, while picking up newly-activated Andy McDonald in St. Louis.  Vermette said goodbye to Allan's team already with a couple more points, but McDonald returned with an assist, so the Blues might definitely be an upgrade in this position.

So, with the 1st round finally complete, I thought I would quickly run through the 2nd round of the draft, as the pickings were awfully slim.  There were six passes in the 2nd round, which is a good indication of how many healthy teams there are going into the final nine weeks of the season.  Long-term injuries to Evgeni Malkin and Rick DiPietro highlight the drops, while there were still a curious number of drops, like Justin Williams, Wojtek Wolski and Travis Zajac, but the heart wants what it wants.

Among the interesting pick-ups include T.J. Oshie of the Blues, who has missed the better part of the season in St. Louis, but is among a growing group of players returning from injury, Kevin Poulin of the Islanders, who has now been left with the task of being the number one goalie on Long Island, unless something else drastic is to happen, and James Reimer in Toronto, who has worked his way into the goalie conversation between J-S Giguere and Jonas Gustavsson.

The most interesting pick-up belongs to our first place team, Allan S., who decided to drop David Booth of the Florida Panthers and pick-up returning forward Peter Forsberg, who has agreed to play for the Colorado Avalanche.  Through some very early action on Sunday morning, Allan holds an 8-point lead in the standings, which will now be measured against the return of Forsberg.  The intrigue goes up exponentially with this move.

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