
The Waiver Draft has come and gone and teams haven't quite cried about when the next one is coming, but after a rough week for some on the injury report, it probably isn't too far away. This was the week where we try to make up some ground on the teams that were at the top of the standings, try to close the gap and make it a little bit more competitive for the rest of the year, so it will be interesting to see how that all played out.


Thanks to an injury to his regular backup, Carter Hutton, Allen was forced into some extra duty, as the Blues continue to fend off teams from their spot, atop of the Central Division and in the fight for top spot in the Western Conference. Allen played in four games this week, beating Montreal on Tuesday, shutting out Dallas on Thursday, beating Detroit on Saturday and then on back-to-back nights, getting the best of Buffalo in overtime on Sunday. A 4-0-0 record with a shutout will give us all 10 points.
The big week in Week Ten gave the St. Louis Blues number one goalie 37 points in 26 appearances this season, good enough for 11th overall in pool scoring, which is 4th among all goalies this season. This is pretty news for Cam, who took the Blues netminder with the 19th overall selection in the draft, which means he's getting a bit more than his projected value from the draft.


Other notable players on his team include Steven Stamkos of the Lightning, who had 5 points and Wayne Simmonds of the Flyers, who had 4 points. The only player not to register a point on his team this week was the virus-stricken Jonathan Drouin in Montreal, who did end up playing one game in the week, but obviously it went for naught.
Derek's team has remained fairly healthy, which has allowed for them to continue posting a good number of points. His team ranks 5th in skater games played, while Bobrovsky keeps his goalie minutes afloat at 15th in the pool as well. His forwards and goaltending are keeping him in the hunt, with his team ranking 7th in forward points and 8th among keepers, but his defensemen still lack that extra bit of punch.
At the Waiver Draft, he did make a pair of moves, both coming in handy this week, as Tristan Jarry earned him a win in Pittsburgh and Kris Russell did pick up an assist as well.
Derek's peak position in the standings at Newsletter time is 5th place, where his team currently stands 11 points back of, but if his team can jump back into that spot, it's only a few more points into the money.

The last time a Basement Dweller team finished in a money position spot, we have to go all the way back to the 2014 season, where Chris M. finished with 14 points and dropped down to 3rd place in Week Fourteen that year. Brian's team, in very similar fashion, had 15 points and dropped from 1st place to 3rd place, letting go of a 10-point lead in the process.
Brian's team is just riddled with injuries, which is the main reason for the significant drop in the standings and his risky maneuvers at the Waiver Draft were no big help either. Mika Zibanejad and Ryan Johansen are both on the Injured Reserve, on the fence about coming back here soon, while Jaden Schwartz, his top forward, is now out for the next six weeks and on top of it all, he took a gamble on Zach Parise in Minnesota, which has yet to start paying off as well.
Needless to say, Brian's team was dead last in skater games played in the week, with only 27 appearances, and out of three starts from his goaltending, he only collected 2 points.
Brian's team will need quite the bounce back week, if he can get some of his injured guys back in the race.

Teams are nipping at Brian's heels though, as Dale B. is only 1 point back, Stuart is 3 points back, Kristy & Don are 5 points back and Benson is 7 points back. If Brian's team can't find a way to get healthy, the sudden stop at the end of this fall could be in a devastating position.

The All-Star break might be the next time we really have some drama in this mini-game, barring any severe cold streaks by any of the teams still involved in this mini-game.

Dale C.'s team kept the pace, only sitting a point back in the ratings, while Steve's team lost a point, but still remains fairly close in a very topsy-turvy kind of race.
Four teams in the pool all finished -10 or worse and Dale B. and Chris S. both have now posted back-to-back weeks of -10 or worse. Yikes!


Neil's team was the biggest bunch of goons to start the second segment, finishing with 39 minutes and jumping up to 3rd place, but Cam wasn't too far behind, thanks to his Bruins, finishing with 38 minutes in the week.

There wasn't much change to the overall race though, as Clayton's team still leads Cam's by 5 points, but Chris' team was the best set of rookies in the week with 5 points from Monday to Sunday.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
As we should have expected with the Waiver Draft concluding, participation was up in Week Ten, as we saw some record numbers in the skater games played department, averaging 18.3 skater games per NHL game on the schedule. Unfortunately, that was the only remarkable change in the week, as scoring only increased marginally, no record-setting pace, and our point totals only ranked 3rd out of the 10 weeks played.
The schedule ramps back up to 51 games in Week Eleven and if the pool can keep the pace, we could possibly see some record numbers jump up at us.
NEWS AND NOTES

For Benson, this is of great concern to his pool team, which is currently in the thick of the money race, not to mention numerous side bets with his forwards.
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