Well, we really didn't make it very far in the last 24 hours. One pick. That was it. Steve was on the ball, ready to kick off round two of the Waiver Draft, but Scott was nowhere to be seen and his time is almost up for the 24-hour rule.Steve ended up dropping the oft-injured and slumping Cam Atkinson in Columbus, opting for a Riley Nash in Boston, who has had a pretty good year, acting as secondary scoring for the Bruins, who have been surging of late, except for last night against Anaheim.
There's a lot of joy in the Waiver Draft, that we were able to do so well in the extra days before the week had actually started, since I haven't had a response from Scott, but we'll move on without him here shortly, if I don't hear back from him. I don't think he was planning on many moves, maybe one more defenseman, but it wasn't for certain.
I've poked Stacey C. to get him thinking about his 2nd round pick, so we'll pick up the action tomorrow from there, I'm thinking.
It hasn't been a good run of games in the last week for Anaheim's John Gibson, as he left the Ducks game before the break with a minor injury, but was able to start last night against the Bruins. He was forced from that game too, with an undisclosed injury, but he was on the ice, when the winning goal was scored, so he did get credit for the 2 points against the Bruins. There was no post-game update on his condition, but until otherwise posted, he's considered day-to-day.
In Vancouver last night, the Colorado Avalanche were in to face the Canucks and the left the game with an overtime loss and without the health of their top player, forward Nathan MacKinnon. MacKinnon collided awkwardly with Alex Edler, taking the worst of the collision that he initiated and had to leave the game looking rather worse for wear, dealing with some visible shoulder pain. There was also no immediate update on his condition after the game, nor a timeline for a return, so we'll wait impatiently to see what is happening with the pool's 3rd-best scorer.
A high, late, blindsided hit knocked out Boston Bruins forward David Backes on Tuesday night, in that game against the Ducks. The hit, delivered by Nick Ritchie, sparked quite the bruhaha in the game, but the injury report after the game was that he did get his bell rung, but the coaching staff didn't know much more than that right away. It certainly didn't look very good and we'll expect an update in the next day or so, with the Bruins playing again on Thursday night.
On Monday, we had four picks and one pass to close out the 1st round, beginning with Kristy & Don getting rid of one of their injured forwards in Sven Andrighetto of the Avalanche and picking up Tyler Bertuzzi of the Red Wings, trying to squeeze out every last forward point possible. It's a homer pick, but the kid has been playing quite a bit, so it could possibly pan out in the right direction.
The Winnipeg Jets announced on Monday morning that defenseman Jacob Trouba will be out for the next 6-to-8 weeks with an ankle injury, which he suffered in the team's last game before the All-Star break against the Devils.
Dale C. kicked it off with dropping his only entry in the rookie race, Washington's Jakub Vrana, who had been somewhat underwhelming on the offensive juggernaut, that is the Capitals. In his place, Dale added Nashville forward Calle Jarnkrok, who should help both the overall race and the plus/minus mini-game as well, down the stretch.
Tony rid himself of Ryan Strome of the Oilers, his least efficient forward and he took a chance on Chris Kunitz in Tampa Bay, citing his current linemates are pretty good and it was totally worth the gamble to do so. Tony's team has been climbing the ranks and could use a quick boost from a veteran scorer.
The hockey pool didn't need a full week's worth of action to get to the usual 8 points for our Player of the Week nod, as Robin Lehner of the Sabres only started two games this past week, one in Edmonton and the other in Vancouver, earning shutouts in both games and getting the job done efficiently.
It was a pretty good race for the Mover & Shaker this past week, with eight teams finishing with 20 points or more with only four nights worth of action. Heading into Thursday's action, it was looking like Wes was going to take the title, having a sizable lead heading into the day, but his team seemed to have sputtered and Tony's team shot past and finished with 25 points, 1 point clear of his competition for his first Mover & Shaker of the season and only his second nod all-time on the website. His first coming in Week Twenty-Three of the 2016 season.
Tony's team has really been on the move in the second segment of the season, where he finished Week Ten in 17th place, his team has moved and shaken its way up into the top 10, finishing in 8th place in Week Seventeen, thanks to this big week. His team is now 2 points out of 5th spot, but still has some work to do for the money, still 29 points out.
Well, if Stacey C. was hoping to get a really good pick in this week's Waiver Draft, then his team went the right way to help him out! Granted, if he wanted his team to finish respectably, well... he got a much better pick in the Waiver Draft!
There was no change in the top three this week, but the race for 1st place did get a little tighter. Dale B., the reigning champ, still leads at 440 points, but his lead is now down to 8 points, as Stuart is at 432 and Benson is at 431, well within striking distance, at any given time.
Well, Steve's team does seem to have its off weeks, as Week Seventeen wasn't great for his side, finishing with a -8 rating, his first negative week since Week Ten, which was only -1. His team still carries a monster lead of 30 points over Cam's team, but that isn't impossible to overcome, since anything can happen in this department. Steve did try to shore up his chances already and having the 1st overall selection in the Waiver Draft will certainly do that for some teams. He took the best plus/minus guy available, Boston's Zdeno Chara, who ironically enough, belonged to Cam in the first segment.
The mini-games were included to help keep the season interesting for all teams, especially those who aren't in the money race at the top of the overall standings. Steve is loving these games, since he's now got $60 in the bank from the All-Star tournament scoring, something you can read more about below. Steve's team was the best of the bunch, finishing with 7 points out of the three games played and with his team defending well in the plus/minus game, he's coming out like a bandit this year.
It's been a little while since we had an update on the goon pool, which isn't for money (I feel like I should remind us all of that every time), but not a great deal has changed since the last update. Even though Wes dropped Radko Gudas in Week Nine, his team still continues to lead the faux pool over Brenda & Seward, now up by 18 minutes.
In the freshmen scoring department, Cam's team overtook Clayton's team a few weeks ago and has held a slight lead ever since. At the end of Week Seventeen, Cam's team leads 72-68 in the faux competition, while Chris' team has been flying up the ranks in recent weeks and his team currently sits at 60 points. This would be a pretty good race, if there was money involved, especially with a few decent rookies left to be picked in the Waiver Draft this week.
The Jaromir Jagr era in Calgary inches closer to being officially over, as the team has put the veteran forward on waivers on Sunday, with the idea that he will be reassigned to a European club in the coming days, if he isn't claimed by another NHL club, which does seem somewhat unlikely. Health issues have been a major factor of his inability to compete this season and it had limited him to only 22 games, scoring 1 goal and 7 points.
It was quite the afternoon worth of hockey on Sunday, coming off a pretty impressive skills competition, the 3-on-3 tournament was fairly entertaining, even if it was a little more defensive than the previous year.
The spirit of the PIM pool is alive and well with Wes' team, as he has written off the regular season and decided to goon it right up. Wes did indeed swap out Panthers forward Radim Vrbata, only to take the best goon available, another Panthers forward, Michael Haley. Wes will go into Week Eighteen on Tuesday night with an 18-minute lead over Brenda & Seward and looks to expand on it, when players go live on Monday, February 5th.
Mike went the route through San Jose to help improve his hockey pool team in the early days of this Waiver Draft, dropping an ill-performing Nick Bonino in Nashville and adding forward Kevin Labanc of the Sharks, who has been doing quite well, emerging virtually out of nowhere. Labanc's scoring rate has been impressive this year, 0.6 points per game, given that most of us probably haven't heard of him yet.
Long Island sophomore forward Anthony Beauvillier has been playing on one of the top two lines for the Islanders and he's been cashing in over the last few weeks, as his team has been starting to heat up of late. This appears to be a pretty shrewd pickup for Chris, who may or may not have been looking for a rookie instead, to play in the non-existent rookie rookie pool, especially since he dropped Los Angeles rookie Adrian Kempe to pick him up.
The Swedish National Hockey Team rounded out their roster, as they only had initially announced 23 players in their first go at it, adding forwards Patrik Zackrisson and John Norman to their fold, both coming with pretty good credentials in the KHL this season. The completed Swedish roster is now listed down below and I believe that means that every team is announced and ready to go for the tournament, we're still sorting out when and where to draft, which should be coming pretty soon.
Admittedly, I could have used the Olympic flag, like the Olympic Athletes of Russia are going to have to play under, but they're Russians and that's how we all know them, so that's how I am going to acknowledge them. I am just putting that out there.
Norway hasn't had their fair share of NHL players in recent years, Mats Zuccarello is the only Norwegian player in the NHL today and he has been for a little while. 
Looking back at the German Ice Hockey Federation's history with the Winter Olympics, they have been to every one of them, thus far. That's got to be worth something, right?
The Slovaks don't have a great deal of familiar talent going to the Olympics this time around, but that isn't to say that they don't have any. The most notable name on the team is the 38-year old Ladislav Nagy, who last played in the NHL 10 years ago, finishing off with the Los Angeles Kings. He will obviously be shouldering much of the load for this team, mostly in leadership form.
Maybe the question for the Swiss in these Olympics should be, "how hot of a goaltender do you need to win this tournament?" It could be safe to assume that Jonas Hiller will be the guy for Switzerland in Pyeongchang, but Tobias Stephan had a cup of coffee in the NHL (in 2008 & 2009) as well and has also had a long European career. So, they do have that going for them, right?
The Finns are looking like they could be a team that could be reckoned with. The team was announced earlier this week and they have a pretty good mix of veteran talent and some of the burgeoning young talent, which is set for a career in the NHL.
The host nation of this year's Olympics, South Korea, does have its own ice hockey league, where they have been trying to build up the game in their nation, certainly with the help of some North American talent, which does feature prominently on their team. As long as players have been playing in the country for a number of years, they can assume citizenship and be eligible for Korea's Olympic team.
We all know that Slovenia's top hockey export in the world is Los Angeles Kings forward Anze Kopitar and he has done well to raise the awareness of Slovenia in the modern hockey world. They have indeed qualified for the Winter Olympics and they have been making some noise on the world scene in recent years, appearing in the last Olympics, where they placed 7th with two wins to their name, and they have appeared in four of the last eight World Championships as well.
In all honesty, I thought the head start that I would get out of Friday's action would have been pretty limited, but I was pretty impressed by those who jumped up and made their picks right away. I believe that means that everyone is still watching... maybe there is some good chirping going on out there, that I don't get to see behind the scenes.
Cam had dropped Zdeno Chara in the first Waiver Draft and rightfully so, his overall offensive numbers are a way down, but to his benefit, Chara has been on the ice for the Bruins offensive surge and still uses his size to help keep the puck out of his net. Therefore, he was the perfect pickup for Steve's plus/minus leading team, as the best player available in the statistic and the season-ending injury to Vegas' Luca Sbisa made him the perfect drop.
Another Week Nine drop comes up big in Week Eighteen, as Evgenii Dadonov was a drop of Dale C.'s, only to be a treasured pick for Eric's 4th overall pick on Friday. Eric's group of underachievers has been quite the disappointment, especially for how much hype a lot of his guys had coming into the year. Max Domi was the most disappointing on his team and ended up being the drop on Friday afternoon.
The 2018 season has now concluded for Sabres defenseman Zach Bogosian, after the team and the player both agreed that hip surgery was a logical decision moving forward, looking ahead to the 2019 season, more than anything else. Bogosian has been dealing with a hip problem since the start of the season, but a combination of the hip and another lower-body injury, suffered in January, made the decision a little more straight-forward for both parties and the surgery needs an extended period of time for recovery, but they expect the 27-year old to be 100% for training camp.
Another name has dropped out of the All-Star festivities, as Columbus defenseman Seth Jones has been sidelined with an illness, according to the Blue Jackets release on the matter, so instead they will be sending teammate Zach Werenski in his place. It is unclear whether or not Jones will have to miss a game of the regular season, just to comply with the guidelines or whether or not illness is good enough reason to pass through unscathed, given that a player can recover over the weekend.
The Arizona Coyotes had a rough night on Thursday, starting out with defenseman Alex Goligoski being held out of the last game before the break with an illness, currently listed as day-to-day, while defenseman Jason Demers suffered an upper-body injury in the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. They also lost non-pool forward Brad Richardson to injury as well, so the break can't come at a better time for their hurting bodies. It isn't like this will make a difference to their playoff contention, but they'll still want to finish the season well to keep some level of pride.
The Chicago Blackhawks are still looking for consistency and still rotating players in and out of their lineup. On Thursday night, Patrick Sharp was made into a healthy scratch again, sitting for the game against the Red Wings, a game they won, 5-1. You would have to believe that the Blackhawks will be trying to make moves before the trade deadline, which is now a month away, to improve their chances at a playoff spot and Sharp could be one of the guys that fall victim to those moves.
The Philadelphia Flyers gave the full night off to Brian Elliott on Thursday night, giving Michal Neuvirth the start against the Tampa Bay Lightning and recalling Alex Lyon to take on the backup duties for the evening. Elliott is said to be nursing a lower-body injury these days, so an extra day or two of recovery could probably go a long ways to help save him from further injury. I would have to believe that Elliott should be good to go when the schedule resumes next week.
Finally, the Washington Capitals may be holding their breath a little bit, as they await word on the severity of the injury suffered by forward Evgeny Kuznetsov on Thursday night against the Florida Panthers. The injury appeared to be a groin injury of some sort, but the team would only go so far to give it the ol' lower-body injury tag. He will be among those reevaluated over the break, but it doesn't look too positive right off the hop.