Monday, November 19, 2018

Week Nine Waiver Mock Draft

It's that time of year again!  We're only one week away from the start of the Week Nine Waiver Draft and with that, I have done up what the draft could have looked like, using the order from the standings at the start of Week Eight and I just went down the line, using the available players list, making sure that the players were not hurt.

Let's review the rules first, shall we?

We will do two full rounds of the Waiver Draft, the order being decided after the audit on Monday, last place to first place in both rounds of the draft.  Teams will be permitted to drop one player and pick up a player of the same position in each round.  Players dropped in a round will not be permitted to be taken again until the next round, just so everyone has a shot at some players dropped that may have been dropped for mini-game reasons.

There will be a bonus round and the kicker there is that only players who are injured can be dropped in the bonus round.  This round is to ensure that your team is healthy going into the second segment of the season and not to just get rid of some duds.  The first two rounds are for that.  The second round will be a full-on free-for-all, first come, first serve, once the notice goes out, you can have your fun and reboot your roster, assuming that you have a team lined out the door of their local infirmary.

With all of that being said, let's have a quick peek at the first round, as these drops may or may not happen and they are replaced by the next best player available, no mini-game consideration was done.

Pick Team Dropped Player NHL Pos Picked Player NHL
1 Scott Gilmore Pat Maroon STL F Jason Pominville BUF
2 Brenda & Seward William Nylander TOR F Chris Tierney OTT
3 Derek Bell Martin Necas CAR F Kasperi Kapanen TOR
4 Dale Corley James Reimer FLA G Louis Domingue TAM
5 Derek Wilton Mattias Janmark DAL F Travis Zajac NJD
6 Chelsea Bradley Cam Fowler ANA D Ryan Murray CBJ
7 Tony Dourado Cory Schneider NJD G Casey DeSmith PIT
8 Benson Greenley Riley Nash CBJ F Jason Spezza DAL
9 Eric Wheeler Malcolm Subban VGK G Mikko Koskinen EDM
10 Stacey Campbell Kailer Yamamoto EDM F Anthony Duclair CBJ
11 Jeremy Dieser Tanner Pearson PIT F Colin White OTT
12 Ryan Miller Scott Darling CAR G Antti Niemi MTL
13 Jesse Phalen Troy Terry ANA F Nick Foligno CBJ
14 Wes Moroz Mark Jankowski CAL F Valtteri Filppula NYI
15 Brian Towers Valeri Nichushkin DAL F Cody Eakin VGK
16 Grant Saskiw Michal Neuvirth PHI G Curtis McElhinney CAR
17 Neil Buysman Tristan Jarry PIT G Pheonix Copley WAS
18 Mike Somerville Derek Ryan CAL F Blake Coleman NJD
19 Steve Bishop Tyson Jost COL F Tyler Bertuzzi DET
20 John Preston Niklas Kronwall DET D Maxime Lajoie OTT
21 Kristy & Don Ryan Spooner EDM F Devin Shore DAL
22 Clayton Corley Ryan Donato BOS F Brett Howden NYR
23 Stacey McDonald Mathieu Perreault WPG F Nikolay Goldobin VAN
24 Stuart Greenley Max Pacioretty VGK F Mikkel Boedker OTT
25 Troy Berkley Erik Haula VGK F Phillip Danault MTL

Jason Pominville of the Sabres is currently the hottest commodity on the market for the Waiver Draft next week, as he leads all available players with 17 points in 20 games this season.  He'll be ending up on the pool coldest team, belonging to Scott, who starts the week 10 points back of 24th and would need some real help to move up that spot and lose out on Pominville.

Top rookie available in this first round of the draft, Ottawa's Colin White, who has had a slow start to his NHL career, but has seemingly started to find his groove this year.  He has 6 goals and 12 points in 20 games and would certainly help any team trying to either improve upon their standing in the rookie mini-game or even get their feet wet in it.  Nevertheless, he will be taken, even for his general scoring talents, 12 points is a good boost to a team.

How about the game-winning goals mini-game?  Devin Shore of the Stars is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, but still leads the available players with 3 winners in the first eight weeks of the year.  Eight other players, including Pominville, are rocking 2 winners and could certainly help out a team looking at that mini-game, looking for that clutch goal scoring this season.

The shootout goals is another mini-game that's going to pay this year and as much as we haven't seen nearly as many shootouts this year, but there are still goals going in and we're not cashing in on them.  Eight players have scored a goal in the shootout, still available on the list, so we might not list them all here, but there are a few to look at.  Markus Granlund of the Canucks, projected for the second round, leads all available players with two attempts in the shootout, so that might be something to consider.

Pick Team Dropped Player NHL Pos Picked Player NHL
26 Scott Gilmore Justin Schultz PIT D Robert Hagg PHI
27 Brenda & Seward Evan Bouchard EDM D Jake McCabe BUF
28 Derek Bell Danton Heinen BOS F Jake Virtanen VAN
29 Dale Corley David Backes BOS F Josh Anderson CBJ
30 Derek Wilton Andreas Johnsson TOR F Conor Sheary BUF
31 Chelsea Bradley Jesse Puljujarvi EDM F Michael Grabner ARI
32 Tony Dourado Ryan Strome NYR F Markus Granlund VAN
33 Benson Greenley Zdeno Chara BOS D Mike Green DET
34 Eric Wheeler Milan Lucic EDM F Oskar Lindblom PHI
35 Stacey Campbell Marco Scandella BUF D Ben Hutton VAN
36 Jeremy Dieser Oliver Bjorkstrand CBJ F Vinnie Hinostroza ARI
37 Ryan Miller Deryk Engelland VGK D Jamie Oleksiak PIT
38 Jesse Phalen Daniel Sprong PIT F Dominik Simon PIT
39 Wes Moroz Tyler Myers WPG D Braydon Coburn TAM
40 Brian Towers Travis Dermott TOR D Scott Mayfield NYI
41 Grant Saskiw Sven Baertschi VAN F Lars Eller WAS
42 Neil Buysman Dion Phaneuf LOS D Matt Grzelcyk BOS
43 Mike Somerville Bryan Rust PIT F Artturi Lehkonen MTL
44 Steve Bishop Nikita Zadorov COL D Cody Ceci OTT
45 John Preston Michael Del Zotto VAN D Erik Gudbranson VAN
46 Kristy & Don Anthony Beauvillier NYI F Brett Connolly WAS
47 Clayton Corley Matt Benning EDM D Dylan Demelo OTT
48 Stacey McDonald Ondrej Palat TAM F Frans Nielsen DET
49 Stuart Greenley PASS PASS
50 Troy Berkley Thomas Hickey NYI D Tony DeAngelo NYR

I didn't add any players that may have been dropped in the second round of the Waiver Draft, this was strictly dropping players to pick up players from the available list.  I think we'll see a good number of defensemen shifted in the second round, since they are not nearly as valuable than the forwards that are available, but there could be some decent ones in there.

Also, there are a number of teams that do have some more injury concerns and I didn't necessarily want to point them all out, so the bonus round, if it happens, will be a bit of a mystery, until the end of the second round, of course.

Some teams will certainly struggle with some decisions, like whether or not dumping William Nylander is a good thing?  Will Jonathan Quick ever play again and if so, how good could he possibly be?  What is the actual timeline for Andrei Vasilevskiy being out... is it worth dropping him for minutes now?

This Waiver Draft should make for some interesting questions and the answers will take their time to unfold, but make no mistake, we will answer those questions!

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