Week Nine Waiver Draft (Dec 3)

The Waiver Draft had its fair share of slow downs on Tuesday, but we eventually got the first round done before the clock struck midnight, so technically, we did quite well with the opening round.  Now that everyone has made their first moves, the second round should be a breeze, right?

Stacey M. kicks off the third installment of these blog posts, taking Riley Nash from the Hurricanes, who has been enjoying a pretty good start to the season, likely thanks to some injury problems and giving him more ice-time.  He should be a better option than Mika Zibanejad in Ottawa.

With the 19th pick, Tony ditched his preseason waiver pick-up, Anders Lee from the Islanders, who started the year in the minors and has been a bottom six player for the team.  In his stead, Tony has decided to take on Kings youngster Tanner Pearson, who collected his 10th goal last night, but Tony won't start collecting those points until Monday, unfortunately.

Clayton had the 20th pick and he had to drop Teuvo Teravainen, who was a victim of the salary cap ceiling in Chicago, which forced him to stay in the AHL.  Canucks rookie Linden Vey will be his replacement, as he has seen some positive playing time with the Sedins on the power play.

The final actual move of the opening round belonged to Dale C., who made a bold move, dropping Flyers back-up Ray Emery and picked up the newest signing in St. Louis, Martin Brodeur.  Brodeur signed a 1-year deal on Tuesday to help band-aid the goalie situation, as Brian Elliott remains out with a knee injury.

Both Grant S. and the leading pool duo, Kristy & Don, each passed on their opening round picks, which ended the first round.

First thing on Wednesday morning, Benson took on another Red Wings forward in Stephen Weiss, who has finally returned from some nagging injuries and has started off on fire.  On the other side, he dropped Buffalo forward Matt Moulson, who has been somewhat disappointing this year, despite the current run the Sabres are on.  Benson now has two quality forwards on his team from this Waiver Draft, so his team can start his ascent out of the basement.

Brenda & Seward are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the addition of Ducks forward Matt Beleskey, who they picked up in place of Stars forward Ales Hemsky.  The pool's second duo also came away pretty happy, picking up a couple of dynamic forwards in the draft.

An early season knee injury to Ryan Murray has not healed as well as the Columbus Blue Jackets or Ryan (in the pool) would have hoped, as he remains on the shelf for the foreseeable future.  With that being said, the change was made and Ryan picked up Dimitri Kulikov of the Panthers, who hasn't been doing too bad.  At least he'll be an active body in the line-up, moving forward.

On the heels of a hat trick against the Arizona Coyotes, Wyllie has decided to go with Calgary Flames wonderkid Josh Jooris for his second pick in the Waiver Draft, dropping Washington forward Jason Chimera, who has been disappointing in the scoring department.

The last pick that was made at the time of publication saw Stacey C. improve his blueline with the acquisition of Minnesota's Marco Scandella for the oft-scratched defender John-Michael Liles in Carolina.  Just to get more minutes will be a big plus for Stacey, who isn't necessarily suffering for skater games played, more in need of a better scoring rate from those who do play.

That's five picks already into the Waiver Draft's second round and it will be interesting to see how quickly it all goes.