Waiting and Passing On Players

With the word of Bryan McCabe's trade taking forever on Tuesday, there was a radio interview between Mats Sundin and Toronto's AM640 this morning, which divulged Sundin's inability to make up his mind on whether or not he was playing now. In the weeks leading up to training camp, any news is good news, especially if you haven't done your hockey pool draft yet.

It really looks as though Sundin won't be able to make a decision prior to his appearance in Toronto for a charity hockey game, which leads me to believe he's pretty much useless to the poolie community in September/October. It's really hard to forecast where he's going to fit in a hockey pool system when he's so indecisive. Saying that, you should be scratching him from your pool list and move to avoid him in the big picture and let someone else take the gamble on him playing 70 or more games.

If Sundin is going to avoid training camp, he'll likely have to make like Peter Forsberg, Scott Niedermayer or Teemu Selanne and take a couple of weeks (if not more) to get back into shape when he makes his final decision on playing, which hinders the picking of him right away this season.

This likely means that Sundin will not figure into the plans of the Opiated Sherpa and his annual selection sheet pool, which is a shame. If he cannot find a place to play by the 17th, he won't be on the sheet this year. Forsberg, Niedermayer and Selanne found that fate last season, although they did find homes in the Draft this year, which I do expect to see this year with Mats. Selanne and Forsberg are also expected to have the same fate with the sheet this season, if they haven't committed by the 17th, since Forsberg's health is in question and Selanne's employment is still up in the air. Until they give the okay for the year, you should likely stay away from picking them, unless you're the real gambling type.