Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 27)

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.

So, let's not wait for it, let's get after it!

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.

Scott's team was starting to find some good health among his forwards and everyone he has is starting to work, so he too went to the blueline to feel out some more scoring and he dropped Vancouver's Ben Hutton to pick up San Jose's Justin Braun with the 2nd pick of the round.

The top player available in the Waiver Draft, another Bruins, rookie forward Danton Heinen, goes 3rd overall to Stacey C.'s team, which is in dire need of some more scoring after a dismal Week Seventeen.  Stacey nominated Philadelphia forward Valtteri Filppula as his worst forward on the team to make room for the Boston rookie, hoping he can make up some ground and get to a more respectable position for the end of the year.

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.

I'm sure it was very disappointing for Ryan to drop Jaromir Jagr, but it had to happen.  It certainly looks like his NHL career has completed, but will see out his injury on the Calgary Flames payroll for now.  Taking his spot on Ryan's roster is Ducks forward Ondrej Kase, who had one of the better scoring rates among the top forwards available, thanks to missing out on a number of games, due to injury.

Next up on the clock is Wes' team, which could probably use a little bit of help up front and on the blueline.  I can't see Radim Vrbata lasting very long there.