Week Twenty-Three Newsletter

Well, it's a bit of a late edition of the newsletter this week. There was very little motivation this morning to do the writing, so I've waited until the day's end to get this all together.

Well, there was a little bit of jockeying done in the money this past week. Paul picked up 6 more points than Larry to move into 5th place. It looks as though they will battle down the stretch and it should be quite good.

It didn't look like the loss of Henrik Zetterberg (Box 1) made too much of a difference at the top of the standings though. Dieter did pull a few more points to pad his lead to 17 points with only four weeks to go. Jeff and Don are only separated by a point and that will be a great race in the last month.

Hot Teams Over the Last Four Weeks:
Dale B.... 250
Derek W... 248
Dieter.... 245
Caterina.. 237
Ernest ... 233

Cold Teams Over the Last Four Weeks
Fred...... 145
Mike W.... 165
Greg ..... 180
Gerald ... 184
Ryan M.... 185

Let's see what happened in Week Twenty-Three...

Player of the Week



Sharks goalie, Evgeni Nabokov (Box 12) was this week's winner of the Player of the Week, garnering 8 points for his 11 teams in the pool.

Nabokov has welcomed the extra minutes since Vesa Toskala (Box 6) went down with a groin injury. There is a good chance that Nabokov will go back to platooning with Toskala, but his performance has raised some questions as to whether or not he'll be the starter going into the playoffs.

In the last 3 weeks, Nabokov has registered 18 points in the last 3 weeks... a country mile beyond Box 12 favourite, J-S Giguere. Giguere has only registered 10 points.

This week's Mover & Shaker is the leading point-getter in Week Twenty-Three. Dan W. notched 65 points in this low-scoring week and it lifted him three spots in the Standings... up to 12th. Dan actually moved into a tie for 11th, but is in 12th due to the tie-breaker of goals scored. Dan benefitted from the PotW, Nabokov (8 points), Sergei Zubov (6), Marty Turco (6), Andy McDonald (5) and Vinny Lecavalier (5).

Dan, an ex-Top 10 team, may have found some legs to carry him up to the Top 10 again. He only sits 2 points out of 10th place at the moment, but still 54 points behind 6th place. With only four weeks to go, it looks like an impossible climb for the money now.

There were three nominees for the Basement Dweller this week, each losing three places in the Standings through the week... but like most awards, we can only have one winner. Can I have the envelope, please?

(Drum roll)

And the Basement Dweller for Week Twenty-Three is... Suzanne! With only 44 points during the week, it certainly wasn't enough to hang with the Top 10, especially when you're on the bubble. Suzanne was passed by our M&S of the week and only sits 6 points behind Dan and only 8 points out of 10th, where she was a week ago today.

Martin Brodeur – 106 points
41 wins, 12 shutouts... Brodeur continues to dazzle as the pool's high scorer, now 6 points on top of Sidney Crosby. A model of consistency is how the league sees Marty and the Devils are riding all these wins and points to a high playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.


Pool Trades
The trading deadline has passed in the NHL, but there was no deadline in the pool. There are still trades that could be made, but no one seems to want to use them. That doesn't mean you can have those trades, if you already used your's up.

Trades Remaining in the Top 10:
Dieter... 0 Paul..... 1
Don...... 0 Marcus... 0
Jeff..... 0 Trevor... 4
Dale C... 0 Caterina. 0
Larry.... 0 Josh..... 2

Injuries
Well, just in case you were thinking, "I'm falling in the standings and it couldn't possibly get worse for me," it probably did on Wednesday. Chris Pronger (Box 5) was diagnosed with a broken toe and would miss two weeks or roughly six games. Pronger, one of the best defensemen in the league, will be missed by 25 of 41 teams in the pool. This would be the time for Schneider or Hamrlik to step up and bite some teams in the ass.

Simon Gagne (Box 15) will miss most of Week Twenty-Four with groin problems. Gagne, taken twice, probably won't be rushed back into the line-up, since the Flyers are nowhere near the playoff hunt.


Hockey Night In Canada this week...




Are ya all ready for St. Patrick's Day this Saturday?? Well Hockey Night In Canada should be... I'd imagine Donald S. will be wearing something extravagantly green in celebration. Week Twenty-Four's edition of HNIC will feature the classic match-up between the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens in the Bell Centre in the first half and the second game will be the Canucks hosting the Red Wings at GM Place. Grab your Guinness and pop yourselves down for a good night of hockey.

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