Week Nine Waiver Draft (Nov 29)

No matter how much preparation I can do for the Waiver Draft, there is just no way to get around what real life will bring for everyone.  There wasn't a lot of picks done between the last post and this one, but we'll crack on.  At least we made it into the 2nd round of the draft in this post, so that's a big plus!

Continuing on from Wednesday morning's post, Stuart wasn't very far along from making his first pick of the swap and he's banking on a talented young player that got shifted from one team to another, looking for that fresh start in Dylan Strome. Strome was just dealt to Chicago from a underachieving stop in Arizona and now the 3rd overall pick in 2015 will get some hot talent to play with, which does make this an intriguing pickup.

The opening round concluded with Troy's pick, which reportedly required some last-minute tinkering in the afternoon, due to some unfortunate circumstances, where his ideal selection, some Montreal defenseman we'll not name, went six picks ahead of his.  Finally, he came back with a forward selection, picking up Sam Bennett of the Flames, banking on his two-way play to help keep the overall lead in his favour.

Brenda & Seward then opened up the 2nd round of the draft with a selection from the Blue Jackets, picking up Josh Anderson for the preseason star/regular season dud, Ty Rattie.  The duo needed all kinds of help from every angle, but their hands were somewhat tied at to what they could pull off in this draft and now they are paying close, close, microscopic attention to the William Nylander situation.

First thing this morning, Scott jumped on Lars Eller of the Capitals as his pick, as the Dane has been fairly consistent in playing in Washington and registering points.  The disappointment of James Neal in Calgary had reached a fever pitch with his team and indeed it was a disappointment, as the 7th round pick had done very little in the first third of the regular season.

Derek B.'s run for the rookie pool continued on Thursday morning, as he went ahead and dropped Alex Killorn of the Lightning to pick up Brett Howden of the Rangers, the top rookie available in the morning.  Derek has now added two rookie forwards to his side, both of which have been fairly solid and could help his team really make a run in the mini-game.

A pick that really sneaked its way through the ranks was Chelsea picking up Andrew Shaw, who has been hot in Montreal of late, playing on the team's top line for the last week, maybe a bit more, and has been finding some points because of all that space he opens up for his linemates.  I would say Chelsea could have found herself quite the steal in the 2nd round.

The last pick I have on my page this morning is Eric taking a flyer on the injured Viktor Arvidsson in Nashville.  Arvidsson has been out since November 10th with a broken thumb and the team said he could be out from 6-to-8 weeks, which could put him out to January, but at a point-per-game scoring pace, Eric is banking on an early return and then a big push.  Dumping Milan Lucic for him does really make Lucic look bad, doesn't it?

This brings us to Benson's pick...