Week Nine Waiver Draft (Nov 27)

Yesterday, we kicked off the Week Nine Waiver Draft and it went off with a bang, as we made through 13 picks and drops in the opening day, pretty well halfway through at this point. We did have an afternoon hiccup of sorts, but for the most part, we had done quite well.  As this post was shaping up, we continued on with a couple more picks, so we managed to get up to 15 before it was too late in the morning and now we just need 10 more picks to finish the 1st round today, which would be so good!

Let's have a look and see how the first 15 picks shaped up!

Indeed, between the mock draft and the start of the actual draft, Jason Pominville of the Sabres remained as the top player available and he was the top player taken, but it was by Brenda & Seward, who fell down to 25th place in Week Eight and captured the best pick.  Certainly, they have a long way to go for overall money, but a healthy body can help with the mini-games, like the game-winning goals and shootout goals for the rest of the season too.

Scott's team had top spot in the mock draft, but his team got hot all of a sudden and found a bunch of points in Week Eight, so he moved down a spot in the draft.  He took Nikolay Goldobin of the Canucks, who has been playing on the team's top line in recent weeks and has shown some real improvement.

The rookie scoring race fires up with the 3rd overall pick, as Derek B. added Colin White of the Senators to his side, who was the top available rookie in the draft and still not a bad pick for the overall race either.  Derek's team opened the week in 4th place in the rookie pool, 19 points behind the leader, so White will try and edge his team closer.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been a scoring machine this season, so Chelsea opted to join that bandwagon with the selection of Kasperi Kapanen, who looks to get fired back up again, once Auston Matthews returns to the lineup.  That's certainly not a bad pickup for her side, which has struggled to find some consistent offense.

The top goalie of available list was Louis Domingue of the Lightning, as he has been taking care of things in the stead of the injured Andrei Vasilevskiy and doing quite well, I might add.  He was an easy swipe for Eric's team, which picked 5th on Monday, adding to a team that ranked 23rd in goalie points, so far this season.

Ranking 22nd in goalie points this season is Benson's team, so he opted to take the next best goalie available and that was Casey DeSmith of the Penguins.  Pittsburgh's goalie struggles are real, between injuries and inconsistent play and DeSmith becomes the third Penguins goalie to reach the hockey pool this season.

Stacey C. had a major injury concern to take care of and he dropped Vincent Trocheck of the Panthers with his opening round swap, picking up Colorado Avalanche forward Carl Soderberg to take the spot.  Soderberg isn't part of the team's potent top line, but he has been doing quite well for himself, when other teams are focusing on that top line and leaving the depth scoring alone defensively.

Another goalie was taken in the opening round, this time by Tony with the 8th overall pick, as he opted to give the Edmonton Oilers free agent signing in the off-season, Mikko Koskinen, a try.  Koskinen has been seeing an increase in action in recent weeks and he has been doing okay with that extra time and if he can continue to get ice-time under the new coaches, this could be a good steal.

A hefty price tag and some diminishing numbers heading into the 2019 season scared all the hockey pool teams away from Jason Spezza at the draft this year, but he was available for Dale C. to snap him up with the 9th overall pick in the Waiver Draft.  The Stars have been doing quite well and Spezza has been a productive member of the team, so far.

Wilton upgraded his forwards as well, dropping a Dallas player to pick up one from Anaheim yesterday, opting to add speedy forward Ondrej Kase to the mix, after he got off to a slow start, thanks to an early season injury.  The Ducks are slowly starting to turn things around in their season and Kase is going to be a big part of that, if they continue on that pace.

Brian also dropped an underachieving Dallas player for an upgrade in his forwards, taking Ottawa forward Chris Tierney with his pick.  Tierney has been reveling in all the ice-time that the Senators can afford to give him and it is paying off on the scoresheet as well.  Not many people had a lot of faith in the Senators, but they are still scoring goals, thanks to guys like Tierney.

The first defenseman came off the board with the 12th overall pick, as Ryan jumped on the oft-injured defenseman Mike Green in Detroit.  Green was another one of those players hurt at the start of the season and didn't get to start on-time, but his numbers early on are pretty good, 11 points in 15 games, so this could be a solid add to Ryan's defense.  Ryan's defense is currently tied for 14th with 35 points and gets a solid boost next week.

One of the biggest surprises of the start of the 2019 regular season has been the New York Islanders and they have found some clutch scoring from all over, including Valtteri Filppula, who was Neil's top pick in this Waiver Draft, hopefully taking care of a serious injury concern on his team.  Neil's team got off to a rocking start this year, but has since tailed off, but an add like this could certainly help.

Tuesday morning kicked off with a pick from Jeremy, as he dumped Oliver Bjorkstrand of the Jackets, who has been a healthy scratch for a good portion of the last few weeks and joined the Buffalo bandwagon by taking Conor Sheary to replace him.  If you're going to have healthy bodies, you better make sure that they are playing.

Jesse finished off the batch of current picks taken by the time the publish button was hit this morning, as he took back Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Brown, who he initially took in the September draft, but decided to drop him when Brown suffered a broken finger.  Brown's recovery was quicker than expected and he has picked up some points and shaken off that rust, so he should be good to go next week.