Week Seventeen Waiver Draft (Feb 1)

There were some real strides taken on Tuesday, where we were able to plow through nine picks and nearly finish the opening round of the Waiver Draft. Let's see how the last nine picks went.

Marcin opened the day with a forward swap, taking Anders Lee from the Islanders, who has recently found his game again, especially with the coaching change in Brooklyn.  His team has to find a way back up to the money, where he was at the time of the last Waiver Draft.

Eric looked to improve his forwards as well, dropping his last remaining rookie, Jimmy Vesey of the Rangers and picking up a veteran forward in Washington's Justin Williams.  Eric's team isn't too far out of the money hunt, they'll just need to find a couple excellent weeks down the stretch.

There was a time when Benson was at the very top of the standings, but that seems so long ago now.  The loss of Steven Stamkos certainly hurt his team in November, something he wasn't able to recover from and his 4-month target for return is still about three weeks away, give or take.  Benson doesn't seem to mind, as he reacquired him with his 1st round pick this week.

Another player making a return to the hockey pool in this Waiver Draft is Mika Zibanejad, but it is John S. who has picked him up, as he goes hunting for the money spots, somewhere he's been twice before, 3rd place after Weeks Three and Nine.

The trend continued, with Stuart nabbing Elias Lindholm of the Hurricanes, as his potential is still riding fairly high, even though his overall numbers aren't exceeding impressive, thus far in the season.

Did Scott realize that we weren't counting rookie points as a mini-game?  Okay, sure, it is on the standings as a laugh and he's running away with it, but did he really need another rookie?  With his pick, he went with Toronto's Zach Hyman, who has been seeing some quality ice-time this year.

The rush for defensemen was hinted with Ryan picking up another Hurricane, as Jaccob Slavin was still available and healthy, taking a long-term injury of his list and giving another shot at moving up the standings.

Jeremy needed an upgrade from an Oilers veteran that was losing ice-time, taking a returning player, Patrick Sharp of the Stars, who has had plenty of injury concerns this season, but appears to be healthy again.

Marcie has her eyes on the big prize, not concerning her team with the PIM pool or the outdoor games pool with her team's opening pick, taking Toronto's Connor Brown in the forward position.  After Tuesday night's action, her team only sits 13 points out of 3rd place.

A disappointing season for San Jose's Joonas Donskoi has made for Stacey C. to drop him with his first move at the Waiver Draft and he improved his side by taking Montreal's Philip Danault, who has emerged as a solid player for the Habs.

Stacey's pick was the last one of the night and we had left it at Brenda & Seward's pick at the end of Tuesday night.  And then in the time of writing this post, this happened...

Brenda & Seward passed and so did Cam, which moved us onto three picks that I had banked in my e-mail and they went off without a hitch.

Dale B. dropped the concussed John Moore in New Jersey and opted for the veteran presence of Paul Martin in San Jose, while Brian also dropped a long-term injury in Jonas Brodin of the Wild, picking up Adam Larsson in Edmonton, who is finding his way.

Brian's pick concluded the 1st round of the Waiver Draft (hooray!) and then we could get start on the 2nd round.

And what a start we had!  Troy drops a bomb, letting T.J. Brodie of the Flames go to really goon it up, as he takes Mark Borowiecki of the Senators.

The Brodie drop means we need a quick refresher on the rules, as stated... Brodie will not be available to anyone in the 2nd round, but will be made available in the injury round, if we get to one, after the 2nd round has finished.  That round will only be for injured players to be dropped, which means that if you suffered an injury in the week or lost one of your picked players to injury, you would have a shot at keeping your lineup relatively healthy down the stretch.

Normally, in this round, I would generally take the first come, first serve approach to it, but this is a Waiver Draft and since he is a high priority player, any claims on the day that the 3rd round start will be sorted by the team's position in the standings at the end of the day.