Preseason Waiver Action in the Draft (Oct 4)

Last season, only one team made two picks in the Preseason Waiver Draft, but with the rash of harsh injuries in the preseason action between the draft and the start of the regular season has involved a few more teams and now one more drop/pick than last year. With Saturday being the last major day of preseason action (one game left on Sunday), I'm sure most everyone would rather keep their originally drafted line-ups, but there is still some time for injury, be it mostly in practice, so stay tuned.

First up, Tony was able to drop Columbus forward Boone Jenner, who was going to start the first month of the season on the shelf with a broken hand, hoping to capture some of that new Long Island magic with forward Anders Lee.

Lee has been off to somewhat of a slow start in the preseason, picking up 2 assists in the five games that he appeared in.  It's hard to see where Lee is fitting in with the Islanders at the moment, but he has been serving on the team's penalty kill, which may make him valuable, come the last cuts.

In terms of projections for the coming season, I had Jenner as a 30-point player, serving more as a grinding role player who can find the net.  This is also where I had Lee pegged, in the 30-point range, assuming he can find some time in the top six, once and a while.

Our defending champ also made a move, trying to take home our new valuable trophy (for bragging rights purposes only, not much monetary value), and he was going to find it difficult losing a veteran defenseman, like Sergei Gonchar.  I think he did okay finding a replacement, however, taking Flyers off-season pick-up, Michael Del Zotto.

Del Zotto has appeared to put in some minutes with the Flyers in this preseason, but has yet to get his name on the scoresheet.  With the depth on the blueline being fairly minimal, the Flyers are expected to start the season with the 24-year old in tow.

Picked up as an unrestricted free agent, Del Zotto hasn't been projected very well this year, I figure him to only be good for 20 points or so.  That is a bit of a drop from the 30 points I had Gonchar coming in with, but it's hard to say after the injury, what the 40-year old would have been worth.