The Second Waiver Draft Continues

The last pick made on Saturday night was done by Jani K., as he picked 8th, an improvement in the standings from the last waiver draft, where he picked 5th. With the 8th pick in the second waiver draft, Jani was the first team to swap defensemen, as he dropped Anton Stralman of the Blue Jackets for Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg.  Seidenberg was the best defenseman available after Week Seventeen, having a very respectable scoring rate through 50 games and has been a healthy body all year long.

We had to wait until Tuesday morning before our next pick came around and it was another injury swap in the end, as Peter H. ended up dropping the oft-injured Steve Sullivan from the Predators to pick up Blake Comeau of the Islanders, a top line player for the struggling team in New York.  Sullivan went down with his lower-body injury just before Christmas and was placed on the Injured Reserve immediately, but after that, there has been no news or any updates on his condition, which had to lead to some concerns.  Comeau's play has been improving from year to year, as he is on the verge of setting some new career-highs in points.  He gets plenty of ice-time and with the team starting to get healthy again, good things could happen.

Waiting in the wings for the pick from Peter to happen was Larry D., who decided to drop a concussion problem in Marc Savard and take Jason Pominville, who had already suffered a concussion earlier in the season.  Savard's career has to be in doubt with yet another concussion to his name and it really made the decision to drop him fairly easy for Larry, while the pick-up of Pominville was made easier by some recent successes that the winger has had with the Sabres, just before the All-Star break.  I only hope, for Pominville's sake, that Larry isn't a concussion magnet.

The incredibly slow pace of this waiver draft continued on Wednesday morning, as Stacey C. made his move in the pool.  He had to drop the injured Ryan Whitney, who is battling a serious ankle problem in Edmonton, while picking up Cody Franson from the Predators, who is enjoying a pretty good season down in Nashville.  Franson was the best defenseman in pure numbers at the time of picking him up, so he should be an adequate replacement for a body that likely won't see much more time in the regular season.

Except for a couple of bodies on the verge of a return, Leon G.'s team is relatively healthy going into the final segment of the season.  Instead of moving one of those two bodies, he decided to move the slumping rookie Magnus Paajarvi, who Leon was definitely patient with through the first 17 weeks of the season, trading him away for Drew Stafford of the Buffalo Sabres, who has been having a decent season, but comes with the risk of being somewhat injury prone.  Picking 13th in the draft means he has six teams to leapfrog for the money, so switching for more points is a must.

In a good change of pace, Dale B. decided to pass on his second waiver draft picks, because he has a completely healthy team and there is little to no improvement in any players available, compared to his roster.

Business picked up a bit on Wednesday night, as Don D. dropped the slumping Kristian Huselius out of Columbus and picked up the surging Erik Cole in Carolina.  Don is nicely situated in the hunt for the money and the second segment prize, going into the weekend (to which this pick doesn't apply to), so an improvement up front is greatly appreciated by his squad.  This move should pay dividends, since the Blue Jackets are falling in the wrong direction in the standings at the moment.

With the news that Alex Edler will likely miss the remainder of the regular season with the Canucks, Wayne H. decided that he no longer wants to carry that kind of dead weight on his side, being that he is right there in the money hunt as well.  He decided to go with Andrew MacDonald of the Islanders, who has been enjoying some added ice-time this season, thanks in large part to the injury situation on the Island.  MacDonald has had some good numbers through the first part of the season, scoring at nearly 0.5 points-per-game, which is ideal for most blueliners.

On Thursday morning, Stuart G. finally got off his ass and made a pick, while other teams were waiting for him to get the job done.  He decided to also improve his goaltending this time around, dropping the now-back-up in Tampa Bay, Dan Ellis, picking up the back-up in Nashville, Anders Lindback, who enjoyed most of his success when Pekka Rinne was injured earlier in the year.  Lindback is expected to get a decent number of starts down the stretch, especially since the Predators are firmly in a playoff spot and will likely want to keep Rinne fresh for a run.

On Wednesday night, while waiting in the on-deck circle for his pick, Benson G. announced his move to the Sherpa, likely knowing full well his brother would be moving a goaltender during this draft.  Benson decided to also go the forward route for his waiver draft move, dropping Patrik Berglund of the Blues and picking up fellow Central Division forward Brian Bickell of the Blackhawks.  Berglund has suffered from an under-manned line-up in St. Louis, while Bickell has surprised a few with a better scoring performance, likely due to better minutes.

Also on Wednesday night, Chris M. disclosed his move to improve his team, as he went a little off the board by taking Kyle Okposo from the Islanders, who had recently joined the line-up after missing the first 50 games of the season with a shoulder injury.  Okposo has started to find his stride in the first four or five games with the club, so he should turn out to be a solid pick-up for Chris.  In order to make the move, Chris decided to drop Alex Frolov, who suffered a season-ending knee injury, just inside of the New Year.