Week Eighteen Newsletter

Hey all, just a quick heads up before we get too deep into the Newsletter this week... updates are going to be somewhat slow and there won't be any live scoring, as I will be in Toronto again, starting tonight, but I will be back on Friday, so we should be back to normal by the weekend.

Now, let's see how the week finished off, just before we activate all of our new players from the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft.

This week, it was 8 points that was good enough to earn the top honours for the players in the pool this week and it was a pair of goalies that battled for the spot this week.  Both goalies played in two games, won them both and they were both shutouts, but by virtue of my more time played is the tie-breaker, the difference was only 8 seconds to name this week's Player of the Week, Marc-Andre Fleury of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins started a trip through Western Canada in Week Eighteen and it got off to a rocking start, as Fleury shutout the Oilers on Wednesday and then shutout the Flames on Friday night, making 43 saves between the two games.

This brings Fleury's season total to 67 points on the season, which has him in a 4-way tie for the overall lead in pool points, tied with three other goaltenders, thanks to an odd amount of assists on each side.  By virtue of all the tie-breakers, however, Fleury currently ranks 4th, the bottom of the tie, in scoring, but that's still a pretty good year, by all accounts.

This is Fleury's second appearance as a Player of the Week this season, the first coming back in Week Four.

Well, it has taken a Mover & Shaker nod in the week for Wes to move into 3rd place, finally, as he has been finishing weeks in 4th place for the previous five weeks.

This was Wes' week, finishing with 32 points and the admiration of his fellow poolies.  He moved up a spot after the Waiver Draft positions were set, which is always a big win, but it will be his Waiver Draft moves which will determine the fate of his team by the end of Week Twenty-Seven.

All of Wes' active players on his roster came away with points, only the injured players were among the zeroes on his team page, if you don't include the previously dropped players.  His group was led by Jason Spezza of the Stars, who finished the week with 5 points, followed closely by Montreal's Carey Price, Columbus' Nick Foligno and St. Louis' Paul Stastny, who all chipped in with 4 points each as well.

Remarkably, Wes has been in the draft since the start of the main webpage, back in 2008, but has never finished higher than 6th place in the standings, never finishing in the money positions.  Wes made only one move in the Waiver Draft this time around, picking up Dallas' Cody Eakin, as he looks to ride some momentum into the third segment, as he races a couple of teams to the 3rd place spot and if Grant can't hold on to 2nd, he has a shot at that as well.

It hasn't been the best of seasons for Ryan, but remarkably, despite being near the absolute basement in the pool standings, this is only his second time as the Basement Dweller on the Newsletter.

Ryan's 12 points were enough to kill whatever momentum he tried to gain the week before, losing the position he gained that week in Week Eighteen, dropping back down to 22nd in the standings.

His team had a couple of players with 3 points in the week, Logan Couture of the Sharks and Tyler Seguin of the Stars, but that's where the good news ends for him.  He had four zeroes among his skaters and his goalies were good for nothing in the week, so the Basement Dweller caught up to him pretty quickly.

Here's hoping that he gets a little bit more goaltending luck with Andrei Vasilevskiy, his one Waiver Draft move, picking up the new back-up in Tampa Bay.

TROPHY TALK

So, not only do Kristy & Don have a significant lead over everyone else for the 1st place prize in the pool, they now own rights to the first two segment trophies this season, although they are no screaming hell to look at.  Everything goes back to zero with the start of a new segment, could someone please try and make it a little bit more interesting?

There is a new talking point in the Trophy Talk section, if we're talking money, more than we are trophies.  The 2nd place money, which Grant S. had a firm grasp of earlier in the year, doesn't seem quite as firm as it once did, as Wes, who now sits in 3rd place, has knocked that lead down to 25 points.  Even Clayton is only 30 points back, so this third segment has some life to it yet.

There has been some flip-flopping for the Olli bobblehead, as Allan has taken back the position with a 13-point week, barely keeping himself out of the Basement Dweller spot for the week.  He holds the tie-breaker over Ryan at the moment and has made a couple moves in the Waiver Draft to try and get himself out of this part of the conversation.

Allan's moves will also help him rid himself of the possibility of the double bobblehead at the bottom of the table, as his team leads in the least amount of skater games played, down with 516 games to date.  Dale C. is the closest to him there, up 17 games at 533, while Benson isn't far away either at 535.

WINNING EVERY WEEK

Both teams are still alive in this competition, but Brenda & Seward will have an enormous task to try and stay in, relying solely on Ben Scrivens of the Oilers to win a game each week, while Henrik Lundqvist is out for the Rangers.  Kristy & Don will have to be considered the heavy favourites now, even with an injury to one of their goalies happening over the weekend.

ROOKIE SCORING

Nobody really made a big push for the rookie scoring race at the second Waiver Draft.  There were a few taken, but no one really made that push in the top end.  It's a nothing stat this year anyways, but I thought it would be interesting if someone tried.

Wilton only carries a 1-point lead into the third segment over Mike, the score is 39-38, while Grant S. is back with 30 points and still somewhat in the hunt.

LIGHTING THE LAMP

None of our streakers fell off the pace this past week and we have some busy weeks ahead, so there is a mighty fine chance that they could go all the way, especially the 3-goal per week streakers.  There are only two 4-goal per week streakers left, Kristy & Don and Stacey M., which may be the race we continue to watch.

CHRIS STEWART VS ERIK COLE

We have a side bet, everyone! Who doesn't love a good side bet?

So, Stuart had the bright idea that at his second round selection, at that time (Chris Stewart of the Sabres), would be better than anyone that was available at that same time.  Given that I wasn't going to make a second round Waiver Draft selection, I made the bet using Stacey C.'s pick, which happened to be right after his (taking Erik Cole of the Stars) and as the bet goes... starting today, now that the players are activated from the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft, whoever has the most points from today wins.  The prize... it's $1 per point difference.  It could be a tie, no money exchanged, could be a 1-point difference or one could be significantly better, due to injury or being awful.

Stewart versus Cole... who wins?

ROUNDS 8 & 9 IN THE DRAFT

Since I didn't post a round last week, I thought I would catch up this week with a couple of rounds.  If I continue on this pace, I should have the 1st round done by the last week of the season.

Pick #	Round	Pool	Player	NHL	POS	Points
181	8	Brian Towers	Tyler Johnson	TAM	F	52
175	8	Tony Dourado	Ryan Kesler	ANA	F	37
169	8	Wes Moroz	Colin Wilson	NAS	F	36
180	8	Troy Berkley	Sean Monahan	CAL	F	34
173	8	Dale Bradley	Scott Hartnell	CBJ	F	33
170	8	Stacey McDonald	Justin Faulk	CAR	D	32
172	8	Stacey Campbell	David Perron	PIT	F	31
176	8	Kristy & Don	Brad Marchand	BOS	F	27
168	8	Mike Somerville	Curtis Glencross	CAL	F	26
179	8	Ryan Miller	Torey Krug	BOS	D	26
167	8	Benson Greenley	Evgeny Kuznetsov	WAS	F	23
171	8	Grant Saskiw	Johan Franzen	DET	F	22
165	8	Brenda Farrell	Joffrey Lupul	TOR	F	19
164	8	Derek Wilton	Ryan Ellis	NAS	D	18
178	8	Derek Wyllie	Andrej Sekera	CAR	D	18
183	8	Cam Wagner	Matt Niskanen	WAS	D	17
166	8	Allan Scott	PA Parenteau	MTL	F	15
184	8	Stuart Greenley	Jacob Trouba	WPG	D	15
162	8	Scott Gilmore	Alex Stalock	SAN	G	12
177	8	Clayton Corley	Patrik Elias	NJD	F	12
182	8	Grant Kanwischer	Dan Boyle	NYR	D	11
163	8	Dale Corley	Vyacheslav Voynov	LOS	D	2
174	8	Leo Macht	Jay Bouwmeester	STL	D	2

Pick #	Round	Pool	Player	NHL	POS	Points
189	9	Troy Berkley	Sami Vatanen	ANA	D	33
192	9	Clayton Corley	Brayden Schenn	PHI	F	32
199	9	Stacey McDonald	David Desharnais	MTL	F	31
186	9	Cam Wagner	Frans Nielsen	NYI	F	29
194	9	Tony Dourado	Dennis Wideman	CAL	D	29
193	9	Kristy & Don	Mikkel Boedker	ARI	F	28
198	9	Grant Saskiw	Dougie Hamilton	BOS	D	28
190	9	Ryan Miller	Craig Smith	NAS	F	27
205	9	Derek Wilton	Jack Johnson	CBJ	D	25
207	9	Scott Gilmore	Nick Bonino	VAN	F	25
187	9	Grant Kanwischer	Dion Phaneuf	TOR	D	22
191	9	Derek Wyllie	Marek Zidlicky	NJD	D	22
200	9	Wes Moroz	Nick Leddy	NYI	D	22
206	9	Dale Corley	Dan DeKeyser	DET	D	20
202	9	Benson Greenley	Seth Jones	NAS	D	19
197	9	Stacey Campbell	Alex Edler	VAN	D	17
188	9	Brian Towers	Brian Campbell	FLA	D	15
203	9	Allan Scott	Tobias Enstrom	WPG	D	14
201	9	Mike Somerville	Nail Yakupov	EDM	F	13
195	9	Leo Macht	Mason Raymond	CAL	F	12
204	9	Brenda Farrell	Ales Hemsky	DAL	F	7
196	9	Dale Bradley	Alex Semin	CAR	F	6
185	9	Stuart Greenley	Alexander Barkov	FLA	F	4

Well, not much needs to be said in these two rounds.  A lot of the teams that are doing well, picked well in this middle of the draft kind of spot.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

In 810 skater games and 4,800 goalie minutes collected from 50 NHL games, we saw 535 points collected, which is hovering around the lows of the year.  Thank goodness for that Waiver Draft, hey?

NEWS AND NOTES

Lots of news and notes today, since there was no notes update on Sunday.  It was a pretty busy weekend in the injury department.


Los Angeles defenseman Alec Martinez is reported to be dealing with some concussion symptoms after getting hit by Tampa's Cedric Paquette on Saturday night it if everything goes according to protocol, he'll be out for at least a week.  The Kings coaching staff is saying that he'll be day-to-day, which may suggest that his symptoms are not that bad, but it will be even more interesting to see if he sticks to protocol and stays out for the entire week necessary.

Brenda & Seward's blueline hasn't been great this season, ranking in the bottom-third, but they did make one change in the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft and it was to their blueline.  This injury won't help that cause at all, but hopefully, it won't be a big deal.

Toronto Maple Leafs starter, Jonathan Bernier, was scheduled to go on Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers, but was held back, because of a "mystery" illness, but it is believed that he just had a bout of the flu.  There was no official word, but there was an emergency recall of minor-league goalie Antoine Bibeau, but he was then sent back, immediately following the game, suggesting that Bernier should be healthy to dress for the next game.

This would be considered a missed start for Troy, who would like so desperately to keep up with his fellow rivals in the top 10, but his Week Eighteen wasn't great and he fell down from 8th to 10th.

Anaheim Ducks number one goalie, Frederik Andersen, made an early exit from the game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, after the net he was occupying fell on top of him. There wasn't any specific injury given to the situation, but I think it would be more than fair to assume that the net caused an upper-body injury. As of the finish of the game, there was no immediate update, but we shall wait and see what the word is.

Our pool leaders, Kristy & Don, just had the return of their best goalie (in a tight race) from injury, so losing their second one may be a test for their team going forward. Nevertheless, they will start the third segment with a monster lead and they would need both goalies and a forward or two to go down, for any team to have a hope of catching them by the final buzzer.

The Nashville Predators lost the services of forward Colin Wilson on Saturday night against the Rangers and he was unable to play on Sunday afternoon/evening against the Florida Panthers.  Wilson suffered the injury taking a hit from Dan Girardi and he's now listed as out day-to-day with his injury.  We'll continue to think that he's day-to-day until the Predators say otherwise or he ends up back in the lineup again.

A minor injury for Wes, who jumped into 3rd place this past week.  The injury wasn't quite a cause for concern, when Wes was making his Waiver Draft pick, so we won't make it a cause for concern, just yet.

It was a busy weekend for the New York Rangers, playing Nashville on Saturday and then heading home to take on Dallas on Sunday.  Well, they were without forward Derek Stepan for the first game, but then returned for the second game, as he was dealing with a bit of a flu.  It is just going to be the one game, so this is all the mention we're going to give it.

Benson is only 17 points behind the top 10 and made only one move at the Waiver Draft, so he'll be counting on a whole lot of set him behind, but he climbed over a couple teams this week, so he is at least going the right way.

I didn't quite get to everything this week, since nothing quite went according to plan, so I will try to make up for it later on this week and as I go.

Link to the Injury/News Page