Highlights of the Second Waiver Draft

Well, if anything, the second Waiver Draft will be known for two things... how quick it was to complete and how many players were dropped and then picked up later on in the proceedings.

In the seven years that OpiatedSherpa.com has been used to display the hockey pools, not to mention the years I've been doing this before that, the Waiver Draft has been something that has generally taken from the Monday morning, usually to the Saturday night or even the Sunday night, thereof, usually with a couple people in particular taking a day or so to make their picks, holding it up for everyone.

Sure, there were a few hold-ups this time around, but nothing as severe or as frustrating as previous drafts, so thanks to everyone for staying up-to-date.  I'm sure with how tight this season is and for how many teams are actually in the mix for some prizes at the end of the year, making sure that they get their desired replacement players was high on their list of things to do this week.

Just for some perspective, the top 11 teams in the standings are only separated by 21 points, which is not a very big gap, given that there is still ten weeks of the season left to be played.  With teams closing down double-digit gaps every week, the difference between being in the prizes or on the outside looking in, will be some clever picks in this swap meet.

The other big feature of this second Waiver Draft was the lack of distinct talent to pick-up, so teams were recycling dropped talent to feature in their teams, trying to find whatever upgrades they could in the scraps.

Cam Ward, PA Parenteau, Peter Budaj, Andre Benoit (pictured) and Johan Franzen were the five players chosen, most late in the second round, that were dropped earlier in this draft.  Steven Stamkos, Ryane Clowe, Niklas Backstrom, Roman Josi, Alexander Barkov and Alexander Semin were all players that were dropped in the first Waiver Draft, picked up in the second.

Of that group of players, there is some real gambles in Ward, Parenteau, Franzen and Stamkos, as they will all go into Week Seventeen as injured players on the injury/news page, some with less certain return dates than others.  Possibly the most interesting of the four is Franzen, who was picked up by Grant, who entered the week in 1st place, has since fallen, and has picked up a player with possibly the cloudiest of futures this season.

There was also one other news entry, during this Waiver Draft, that actually had an effect on the decision-making this week, as the Edmonton Oilers were swapping goalies around, which gave new opportunities to goalies, sent another down to the minors and made others into good pick-ups in the Waiver Draft.  As Devan Dubnyk received an upgrade on the team that plays in front of him, moving from Edmonton to Nashville, Marek Mazanec was the odd-man out for the Predators and was sent down to the minors.  The Oilers then turned around and picked up Ben Scrivens, who is now going to get a few more minutes in the crease with his new team, while Martin Jones was called up to become the back-up for Jonathan Quick in Los Angeles.

It was the quick reaction of Clayton, who had Mazanec in the pool, dropped him and picked up Jones, late in the second round, as the deal was maturing in the news.  It's hard to say if it's an upgrade entirely, but having an active goalie instead of one in the minors is helpful.

In other metrics of the draft, there were 10 swaps of goaltenders, eight defender swaps, seven passes, which left 23 forward swaps in the draft.

Two teams didn't make any moves in the Waiver Draft this time around, as both Ryan M. and Mike felt that their teams were good enough for the final stretch, both of which are hovering around the halfway point in the standings, going into Saturday's action.

That pretty well breaks down the main storylines of the Waiver Draft this time around and now we await the results of what will be the most exciting finish to a pool in OpiatedSherpa.com history!