Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 1)

Today is the day that the Waiver Draft is technically supposed to start, as a week from today, the players that we take, officially become active on our teams.  We have one more week with our dregs, so hold tight... we'll get there eventually.

After Benson's humming and hawing, first thing on Sunday morning, we were able to run through nine more teams on the list, in rather impressive form, given that it was a Sunday, after all.  I'm sure there were some takers, all hyped up for the All-Star festivities, but given that it was a chillier day with some snow showers flying, some may have just been having a relaxed day, easy to make the moves, when asked.

Wes kicked off the rest of the day, trying to pad his PIM pool lead and he drummed up a new defenseman, the next best goon in the pool this week, Ottawa's Mark Borowiecki.  Wes was able to drop one of his least penalized players from the blueline, Minnesota's Marco Scandella, so we may see more time in the box from this team in the stretch run.  Scandella's 14 points makes him into a pickable defenseman this week as well, if you needed one.

With the 6th overall pick, another correction needed to be made from the Week Nine Waiver Draft, as Tony flip-flopped goalies, this time dropping Reto Berra of the Avalanche, for Darcy Kuemper of the Wild, exactly the opposite of what he did with the 33rd pick last time around.  Berra failed to pick up a point in the last eight weeks, while Kuemper managed 12 points.

A superstitious pick for Stacey M., who felt that her acquisition of Dale Weise had a great deal to do with the downfall of her Canadiens in the NHL standings, dropped him, in favour of Jamie McGinn in Buffalo, one of the top scoring forwards available in this week's draft.  Weise was a positive player in the last eight weeks, thanks to dropping a major injury, but that just wasn't enough for Stacey, I guess.

The other established goon team in Week Nine, decided against the continuation of gooning it up, straight away, rather Derek & Dan have decided to play for a little bit of pride, opting to improve their goaltending and taking a run with another possible starting goalie in Robin Lehner of the Sabres.  This should be a drastic minutes improvement over Alex Stalock of the Sharks, of which, they dropped.

More goaltending news in the draft, as the 9th overall pick saw Carter Hutton of the Nashville Predators picked up again, as he was dropped in Week Nine, but not by the same team.  Stacey C. improved his goaltending situation, as Linus Ullmark was moved down to the minors by the Sabres, when Lehner came back from injury, hence the need for this move for Stacey.

Another dropped player from Week Nine, recycled in Week Eighteen, Vancouver's Sven Baertschi makes another appearance in the pool, as John S. looks to improve upon his standing at forward, dropping Nashville's Mike Fisher in the process.  Fisher wasn't doing John a whole lot of good lately, so the move needed to be made.

Here in the hockey pool, we care about the environment, that's why there was even more recycling done on Sunday, as Olli Maatta of the Pittsburgh Penguins was picked up by Clayton with the 11th overall pick.  On the way out, the underachieving Damon Severson of the New Jersey Devils, who may or may not be a candidate for a pick-up yet in the pool this week.

It was a disappointing eight weeks for Allan and Dan Girardi of the Rangers, only picking up 2 points since the activation in the last Waiver Draft, so the move was made to drop his previous pick and he opted for Kevan Miller of the Bruins, as the pickings are awfully slim on the blueline about now.

There was one more slot ran through on Sunday night, but it was a pass.  Cindy's team has been healthy for a few weeks now and it has been moving up the standings, somewhat steadily, up from 20th to 15th, since it was officially healthy a few weeks ago.  There haven't been many gaps in her side and there wasn't much improvement in the available list, so she's staying with the status quo.

And that's it!  That's where we stand, heading into Monday morning, where Dale B. occupies the next spot.  I don't know how much movement there is actually going to be, because there is very limited options left in the pool, the top ranked available player is Blake Comeau of the Avalanche, who is 236th overall in pool scoring, heading into Week Eighteen.