Heading Into Weekend Four

What a terrible week for injuries, wouldn't you say? Heading into the weekend, we've seen a few injuries that will keep players out of the line-up for the long-term and they are all significant players in the Draft. You don't want to lose a top forward in Marc Savard or a top defender in Sergei Gonchar this early. Those are the points you want to give yourself a buffer when the wear & tear injuries start to occur.

Thankfully, there have been a number of players that have returned from injury this week as well, which may even out the injury-karma a little bit.

The week that is the fourth is seeing a little separation already of the top four teams in the Draft moving away from the middle of the pack. Dale C., Wes, Allan and Stacey are all separated by 5 points, while they have a 6 point gap on 5th place, Ryan. It's not a very large gap, especially with another Super Saturday coming up, where all the teams can really do a little bit of moving and shaking.

It's a bit of a slow week in scoring this week, but there is still a bit of a race going on for the Player of the Week award. Both Ales Hemsky of the Oilers, J-P Dumont of the Predators are leading the way with five points this week. There are a number of players in the Draft that have four points, so neither one of these two are really safe with their numbers as of yet. Hemsky has a pair of games this weekend, while Dumont only has one, so there is a favourite to take the award out of these two after all.

Now, it's the Mover & Shaker award nominees that really lets you know that the week has been slow in terms of scoring. Benson leads the way this week with 20 points and he's the only team that has hit the 20-point mark. The number of teams that are hitting the 20-point mark into the weekend has shrunk every week I've done the weekend preview, which isn't a great sign. Nevertheless, Ryan is coming in second this week with 18 points, followed by Wayne, who has 17 points and Clayton who has 16.

Currently, Week Four only has 217 points scored, which is less than the four day Week One we had to start the season. Week Two, our top week for scoring this season, finished with 442 points, which Week Four hasn't even reached the halfway point of that mark yet. Thankfully, we do have that second Super Saturday coming up.

What's the Super Saturday, you ask? Well, that means that every team is in action and the only players who aren't playing are the ones that are on the shelf. This weekend we're in for a treat, because we finally have games on Sunday again, even after the Super Saturday. That's also some pretty good news.

The Draft team with the most games to play this weekend is Stuart's team, which is sitting with 18 potential skater games to be played. He will also get at least one start from Henrik Lundqvist this weekend as well, which is also good news. No word on whether or not Vesa Toskala will be ready to go this weekend or whether or not the Leafs will save him for next week.

Bring on the weekend!