Week Nine Waiver Draft (Nov 28)

It's the week a lot of you have been waiting for... Waiver Draft week! Yes, it's already Week Nine in the regular season, this season is just flying by already.

This Waiver Draft didn't get off to the swiftest of starts, but once we got going, the picks and drops were coming at a fairly reasonable pace.  We've got a few new faces in the pool this year and they have to become assimilated into our ways, but overall, it has been going alright.  I am expecting bigger and better things on Tuesday, so we just hum right along.

Scott B. kicked off the proceedings and he jumped on the best player available, which he should have, taking William Karlsson of the Vegas Golden Knights, which shouldn't come as a huge surprise, since Vegas is just rolling right along and they don't appear to be quitting any time soon.

The first goalie of the Waiver Draft went number two, with Eric taking full advantage of the best goalie in the draft, Anton Khudobin of the Bruins.  Eric has one of two teams with only one win in the pool, to date, so goaltending is a huge hole that needed to be filled.

Steve jumped on some more scoring with his first pick, taking advantage of the Devils and their hot scoring start.  He picked Brian Gibbons, who has been on a pretty good hot streak of late.  Steve had to drop Colorado rookie forward Tyson Jost to pick him up, which isn't a bad move, since Jost has been less than a guarantee than he would have hoped.

With the fourth pick, Stacey C. picked up the second Vegas player of the Waiver Draft, picking up Reilly Smith, who has been quite good as well for the Golden Knights, chipping in at key times this season.  Smith should be a solid pickup and help Stacey back into the main pack ahead of him in the standings.

There was a little bit of late night action with Troy's pick, as he came around and dropped Sam Bennett of the Flames and threw his hat into the rookie race, not that there actually is one, taking Tampa Bay forward Yanni Gourde.  

Neil had to take care of some major injury concerns on his side, dropping Zach Parise, who isn't due back until sometime in the New Year, and he picked up Detroit forward Justin Abdelkader, who is having a bit of a bounce back season with the Red Wings.

Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Brown, who was holding onto the top spot for available players for the better part of the season, lasted all the way down to the 7th spot in the draft, where Wes snapped him up with no hesitation.  Brown and the Kings have been red hot of late, it was a surprise he lasted this long.

Finally, another Devils player and another rookie, Jesper Blatt, was picked up as the next available forward for Ryan's team.  Ryan's team hasn't been as hot as he would have preferred, I'm sure, and it started with the forwards, so the upgrade from Brett Ritchie in Dallas had to be done.

So, Tuesday morning kicks off with Mike's pick... then we should be off to the races!