Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 3)

Yesterday was kind of a lost day for the blog, so the clarification on the Waiver Draft controversy didn't get published then, it had to wait until now.

Troy's pick of Brian Elliott wasn't vetoed in the end, but he was deemed ineligible to be dropped in the bonus round, since Troy's team didn't own Elliott at the time of the injury.  The bonus round was for injuries suffered by your team and if you chose to pick up an injured player, likely because he was about to return, that is up to you.  Troy decided to keep the pick, since Elliott is traveling with the team and nearing a return.

Problem solved, but we're going to look further into this issue for next season.

Grant and Stuart were the only two teams left to make a move in the 2nd round of the Waiver Draft and both teams decided to pass, which led us into the bonus round of player swap.

Only two moves have been made in the bonus round, to date, as Troy did have one injury move to make, dropping New Jersey's Sami Vatanen, who suffered a concussion this week and is out indefinitely, and he picked up Pittsburgh's Justin Schultz, who is coming back from injury and could be back int he Penguins' lineup at some point next week.

There was only one team that was able to take advantage of the drop of Frederik Andersen and that was Wilton's team, who had an injured Curtis McElhinney on the shelf in Carolina, so the swap was an easy one for him and it came in just in time.

These have been the only two picks made in the bonus round, but there are a number of players still on the injured list that are eligible to come off, if pool teams so choose.  There are a number of those who are getting close to returns, so teams are likely going to stay put there, but it's just being thrown out there, that there are some bodies that can be dropped.

The deadline for drops and picks will be puck drop tomorrow (Monday).

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 1)

We were so close to finishing the 2nd round yesterday... so close!  We only have a couple of decisions left to be made this morning and we can close off the books on the regular two rounds and then the bonus round will commence.  First, we'll do a little recap and we'll touch on the rising controversy in this year's Waiver Draft, one that will enact some change for next year's rules.

Jesse went out to hit a home run with his 2nd round pick, as he found that Corey Perry is set to come back from his preseason knee injury in the very near future (Saturday, by the look of things), so he snapped him up, hoping for a huge boatload of scoring from him down the stretch.  On the way out, Penguins sophomore forward Dominik Simon, who just couldn't seem to stretch any consistency together.

A major injury had to be taken care of out of Ryan's team, as Matt Dumba of the Wild isn't expected back in the lineup before the end of the regular season, so he needed to be dropped out, which is a huge disappointment, given he was the goal scoring leader among defensemen at the time.  In his place, Cody Ceci of the Senators was snapped up, a guy that has had an okay year and could be on the block for this year's trade deadline.

And then the controversy!  Technically speaking, there was nothing in the written rules that said that a team could not pick up an injured player, especially one that could be used to aid in picking up a player dropped, ineligible to be picked up until the bonus round.  This will be changing one way or another, but for now, Troy has picked up Brian Elliott of the Flyers, currently on the Injured Reserve, also traveling with the team, close to returning, and he dropped Aaron Dell of the Sharks to get him.  With Frederik Andersen on the list of goalies set to become available in the bonus round, the future is very apparent.

Concerns have been tucked away and if there are any other ideas out there for the Waiver Draft, I will surely listen.  For now, there was nothing saying that this couldn't happen, so it has been allowed.

The Vancouver Canucks brought Thatcher Demko up from the minors after a very successful time in the AHL, just around the New Year, shuffling the deck in their crease and they are going to give their future number one a good go before the end of the season.  If the hype is real, then Clayton's team could pick up a good pocket of points, helping his cause in both the overall standings and the rookie pool.  On the way out, Columbus backup, Joonas Korpisalo, who has seen some starts, but time on the ice has been limited behind their big number one.

The last pick actually made on Thursday was a defenseman swap for Steve's team, as he dropped Zach Bogosian of the Sabres and he picked up Brayden McNabb in Vegas to take his spot.  Steve's defense has just been hovering around average all season long and could use the improvement to help lift up closer to the top five.  The pool average on the blueline this season is 83 points and Steve's side is tied for 11th at 81 points.

Okay, so I am just waiting on the final word on Grant and Stuart's teams, they should be done some time this morning.  Then we'll hit up the bonus round.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 31)

It was a short, but sweet day on the Waiver Draft wire on Wednesday, as we didn't see much in the way of player movement, but we did pass over a number of picks, which only leaves us all with a day's worth of action, in theory, before the bonus round kicks in.  By my count, we have 10 selections left to comb over before we get there and before we even do that, let's have a quick peek at yesterday's moves.

John P. was confident with his team moving forward or he wasn't all that confident with the players that were remaining on the list, so he chose to pass.

Brian is still trying to gut out a solid finish this season and he was looking to improve upon his forwards, dropping Florida power forward Nick Bjugstad and replace him with Winnipeg's Brandon Tanev.  Brian's forwards have been good in the second segment, ranking 8th in the pool in the middle portion, with 136 points, but it could always be better, right?

Wilton was humming and hawing over a move in the 2nd round, but opted to stay put for now.  His team does have options in the bonus round, if the news gets worse.

Talk about quick on the draw, Tony's phone was drafted and ready to go with his pick, when it came time to make the selection, as he dropped Nikita Zaitsev of the Maple Leafs and adding Travis Sanheim of the Flyers, hoping that the new surge in Philadelphia would get his team going in the final third.

After that, it was a couple more passes from Dale C. and Mike's team, both unswayed by the lack of talent on the board.  Now that those two have passed, Jesse is back on the clock, as we head towards the final 10 moves in the 2nd round.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 30)

Tuesday had its snags and snarls in the process of swapping some players, so we didn't get nearly as far as one would have hoped, but we did trudge along and knock off seven swaps and three passes, so that's okay, I suppose.  We've only got 16 moves left to make before the bonus round, which does seem like a very lofty goal today, as I write this post.

We finished off the 1st round of the Waiver Draft with Stuart's swap, moving injured goalie Michal Neuvirth of the Flyers out of his lineup and inserting Anders Nilsson of the Senators in his place.  Stuart's team has done exceptionally well with very little goaltending points, ranking 21st in the pool in goalie points.  If his team finds improvement there, it will be back-to-back wins for his side.

Scott kicked off the 2nd round with a forward swap, dropping Week Nine dud Lars Eller of the Capitals and picking up Pontus Aberg of the Wild to take his spot.  Aberg has already been moved a couple times between NHL clubs this season, waived out of Edmonton to Anaheim and then traded to Minnesota.  Could he have found his productive new home, both in the NHL and in the pool?

Brenda & Seward made good on Derek B.'s drop in the 1st round, snapping up Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings for Jonathan Bernier of the Red Wings.  The duo couldn't find their way up the standings much this season, but with an upgrade to two number one goalies on their team, they could start to find their way up the standings a bit more.

If you hadn't noticed yet, Derek B. has been going all-in on the rookies, tanking some of his best players now to get the job done in the mini-game.  His team isn't about the overall standings and hasn't been since Week Nine, continuing on that pace, dropping Frederik Andersen of the Maple Leafs and picking up Chicago platoon goalie Collin Delia, trying to squeeze out any kind of points possible.  Andersen will be made available for the bonus round for any sort of injured goalie.

Chelsea is just carrying on with carrying on, doesn't have a whole lot to play for and just hoping for the best right now.  A quick upgrade of forwards, seeing Loui Eriksson of the Canucks drop out and Mikkel Boedker of the Senators climb on in was the best swap she could make out.  Her team is 19 points clear of 23rd on Wednesday morning and she aims to keep it that way.

Then there were a couple of passes on the books, as both Benson and Eric couldn't find anything that tickled their fancy or filled a gap.  Benson's team ranks 3rd in the game-winning goals mini-game and is good with his team as is to try and win it, while Eric's team is tied for 15th in that mini-game and still hasn't seen a shootout goal yet.

Neil needed a defenseman swap, as one of his Week Nine picks had failed him badly.  Chicago's Gustav Forsling was only good for 1 point in nine games since being activated, thanks to injury issues, so he was exchanged for the best defenseman available, Pittsburgh Brian Dumoulin.  Neil's defense has been bad this season, ranking last with 57 points, but a positive move like this could bump him up a spot.

Jeremy's team was another that felt that passing was in his best interest.  There were no solutions to some of his forward problems and his only injury wasn't going to be replaced by anything much better at this point.

Finally, Stacey C. was on the ball this morning, making a swap nice and early, just in time for this post.  He dropped Alexander Steen of the Blues, who has had his share of injury problems this season, picking up Bryan Rust of the Penguins to take his place.  Stacey's forwards rank 18th in the pool, as of Wednesday morning, which has led to his 18th overall ranking as well.  They kind of go hand-in-hand.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 29)

It was the first official day of the Waiver Draft yesterday and we made some head way, but not without some of that good ol' fashioned waiting around.  We nearly made it out of the opening round, which was a soft goal for the pool on Monday, but we should be able to make some really good progress on Tuesday, since everyone has been paying some attention over the last few days.  Let's see how well Monday went then, eh?

Jesse kicked off Monday's action in the Waiver Draft with a defenseman swap, hoping that Niklas Kronwall will be dealt from a beleaguered Red Wings team to a contender and that he has an impact wherever he ends up.  Frankly, anyone was going to be better than Dan Hamhuis of the Predators, who he dropped for the swap.

Another season-long injury will come off the books next week, as Ryan's team parted ways with Nick Schmaltz of the Arizona Coyotes, who suffered a major knee injury.  Ryan was able to snag Colorado Avalanche forward J.T. Compher, who has been having a decent sophomore season with 20 points in 34 games, not a bad scoring rate at all.

A couple of weeks ago, Carolina Hurricanes forward Jordan Staal did take to the ice before a practice, but a concussion has set him back a little bit further and there doesn't appear to be a timetable for his return, so that made him an easy drop for Troy's team.  His replacement, Vancouver Canucks forward Sven Baertschi, trying to snake a Canucks player out of the list before a certain Canucks fan's pick.

Clayton's team is walking the fine line between the big leagues and the minors once again, as he dropped Drake Batherson, rookie forward for the Senators, now in the AHL, and picked up AHL All-Star and recent NHL scoring star, Brandon Pirri of the Vegas Golden Knights.  Pirri was a late call-up this season, due to the depth of the Vegas team, but has impressed since coming up and it looks like he may stay up as well.

Those Nashville Predators look to be a pretty strong club again this season, so Steve is going to stick with them as much as he can, dropping Austin Watson, who has been a bit of a disappointment, but picking up quite the opposite in Colton Sissons, who has turned it on in the middle portion of the season.  An upgrade up front is hardly ever a bad thing.

The last swap actually made on Monday belonged to Wes, as he mulled over his move for the better part of the afternoon/evening and finally ending up on Blake Coleman of the New Jersey Devils, who had been passed over nearly 20 times in this pool, coming in as one of the top ranked forwards available.  Coleman picked up a goal and an assist last night, not that they actually counted, but not a bad sign for Wes' team, which is in the running for the money.  He dropped Mark Jankowski of the Flames to pick him up.

We almost closed up the opening round, as three of the top four teams were ready to take a pass on this round, Kristy & Don, Stacey M. and Grant all opted to move through this opening round, since they don't really have much for holes in their lineups at this point in the year.  Unless they have a crystal ball that can foresee injuries, they are likely to live and die by the players they have.

Our pool leader, Stuart, has been mulling over goalie options, but he'll have to wait for the 2nd round before he can touch any of those that were dropped in the 1st round.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 28)

The head start proved to be rather useful for the Waiver Draft, as we managed to get through 15 total selections in the opening round, possibly saving me three days of panic and worry, not to mention the "are we in the bonus round?" text messages on Wednesday.  I'm not saying we'll be in the bonus round by Wednesday, but could you imagine if we were?  We had five more picks on Sunday, which really rounded everything out and here's hoping we get off to a bright start on Monday, possibly even finishing round one?

Brian needed to take care of an injury situation in the crease, as it doesn't sound like Antti Raanta is returning to the Coyotes from a lower-body injury any time soon.  The selection to take Raanta's spot was decided on Pheonix Copley, who has been the capable backup to Braden Holtby in Washington this season.  Brian's goalies have been a bit of a let down this year, ranking 19th with 45 points.

Next up was Wilton's team, who had a season-ending injury to dispatch of, as Ondrej Kase of the Anaheim Ducks was shut down for the season after shoulder surgery was said to be needed to repair a torn labrum.  That made the decision to drop him fairly straight-forward and in his place, Wilton managed to snag Paul Stastny of the Vegas Golden Knights, who was dropped because of injury in Week Nine.  This could turn out to be a decent pick for him.

Tony was eyeing up an upgrade at the forward position with his pick, as Ryan Strome just wasn't doing it for his team, even after the move to the Big Apple this season in the trade between Edmonton and New York.  Florida Panthers forward Frank Vatrano was eyed up by a couple of teams before Tony's team, but it wasn't until the 13th pick in the draft before the trigger was pulled on him.

Another Week Nine selection got the chop with the 14th swap in the Waiver Draft, as Dale C. parted ways with Dallas' Jason Spezza, who had only posted 6 points in the last eight weeks of the season, which ranks 36th among all the players taken in Week Nine.  Dale is hoping for a vast improvement by taking Nashville's Nick Bonino for the stretch run, a forward on a playoff-bound team couldn't hurt.

The last pick of the head start went to Mike's team and he also dropped a Week Nine selection that under-performed in the last eight weeks, Devin Shore of the Anaheim Ducks.  Shore was dealt to the Ducks from the Stars in the second segment, but couldn't really find his scoring touch, picking up 5 points in the last eight weeks.  Mike replaced him with Artturi Lehkonen of the Canadiens, who has been an everyday guy in Montreal this year.

So, now we're onto the regularly scheduled portion of the Waiver Draft, 15 picks ahead of where we could have been.  Jesse leads off the proceedings today and hopefully, if all goes well, we could be through the opening round by the end of the day.  Wouldn't that be something?

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 27)

The head start got a few more picks on Saturday, as we slowly chug along to the start of Week Eighteen tomorrow.  We're now up to 10 drops and picks made already, which isn't too bad.  We'll hopefully see a few more on Sunday, but for now, we'll go over the next five that we saw.

Eric kicked everything off on Saturday with the drop of a regular healthy scratch in Joakim Ryan in San Jose, picking up Nate Schmidt in Vegas to help him out.  Eric's defense has had a rough second segment of the season, ranking 17th in scoring since the start of Week Ten, so this acquisition will look to improve upon that.

Goaltending was a popular position to fill on Saturday and Neil kicked it off with the pick up of Darcy Kuemper of the Coyotes, who is getting a good portion of the starts in Arizona, dropping a failed gamble in Tristan Jarry in Pittsburgh, who has spent the better part of the segment in the minors.

Jeremy also needed a swap in goal, moving one Philadelphia goalie for another, dropping Brian Elliott and picking up the rookie Carter Hart.  Jeremy's team hasn't featured in the rookie pool this year, but it will starting in Week Nineteen, but it starts 64 points back of 1st place and Hart might not be enough to get the job done for his side.

A hand injury in December saw Alex Pietrangelo of the Blues get the drop in Week Nine, but he makes his glorious return to the hockey pool in Week Eighteen, thanks to Stacey C. and his need for more scoring from the blueline.  Marco Scandella of the Sabres just wasn't doing it for his team and the upgrade will certainly help.  Stacey's defense has 35 points in the second segment, good enough for 14th, but it got a whole lot better with this pick.

Finally, John P. has had even less luck at the defense position in the last eight weeks, ranking 24th with 25 points from the blueline, so he made the move to drop rookie defenseman Maxime Lajoie of the Senators and he picked up Michal Kempny of the Capitals.  In terms of rookies, John's team is at 32 points, 32 points back of the lead and has now divested another rookie from this lineup, so he might be calling uncle on that mini-game now.

That leaves us with Brian's pick down under.  He has been notified this morning, so I would expect to see something from him this afternoon and then we can continue on.  Once Monday hits, the 24-hour rule will then apply and we'll be in full drafting mode.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Jan 26)

It may not have been the head start I was necessarily hoping for, but a head start is a head start.  Thanks to the All-Star break, we've had the chance to get an early jump on next week's Waiver Draft, hoping to conclude it in good time and have an extended bonus round, if needed.  On Friday, we knocked off a handful of drops and picks, so we'll have a look at those and prepare for a few more drops and picks, if all goes well today.

I didn't think Scott was going to pass up on the chance to get Matt Murray, the best player available in this player swap.  I'm sure he doesn't want to finish in last place this season, so taking the best player available was a pretty solid move on his part.  He dropped Cam Ward of the Blackhawks to pick him up, who could be seen as a reasonable pickup in the next round, one might think.

Brenda & Seward's team is also not looking to stay near the bottom for very much longer, picking up Vincent Trocheck of the Panthers, who was dropped because of injury in the Week Nine Waiver Draft.  The duo are looking to improve upon a dud of a pickup last time around in Jason Pominville of the Sabres, who dropped off the map in Week Ten.

The rookie pool gets a little more interesting when Derek B. drops Jonathan Quick of the Kings to pick up Adin Hill of the Coyotes.  Hill has been platooning with Darcy Kuemper, but the overall points isn't what Derek is after... he just wants his money back.  Will it be enough though?

Chelsea's team was also looking to the forward ranks for some more help, letting the injured Montreal grinder Andrew Shaw go and picking up the much-coveted Micheal Ferland of the Hurricanes.  Ferland is among those players who will likely move at the trade deadline and head to a contender, which certainly gives him plenty of potential for the stretch run.

And finally, the last pick of the day was done by Benson, who wanted an upgrade in the crease, letting go of the other Chicago Blackhawks goalie in the pool, Corey Crawford, and picking up the backup in Winnipeg, Laurent Brossoit, who is putting up stellar numbers in limited action.

That's as far as we've come, we're now waiting on Eric to make his move, if any.  There is no deadline in the head start, but if Eric goes all the way into Monday, then we'll have ourselves an issue.

Week Eighteen Waiver Mock Draft

The moment a lot of you have been waiting for... the kick off to the second player swap of the season, the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft.  Thanks to the All-Star break ending Week Seventeen early, we'll have our order and available players up and ready to go on Thursday morning and we can start kicking off the proceedings nice and early this time around.

Of course, this all can't happen before I post the mock draft... or could it?  I suppose it could, but I have actually found this to be somewhat helpful for a number of teams that have actually read this post ahead of the Waiver Draft, since their indecisiveness has caused hiccups in the past.

Down below are the two mandatory rounds of the draft, which you can swap out any player and pick up a player from the same position and not included in this post is the bonus round, where only injured players can be dropped for players of the same position.  This is to guard against injuries and to have a healthy lineup when Week Nineteen commences on February 4th.  I can't stress this enough... only injured players can be dropped in the bonus round.  Align your strategies as such.

Without any further ado, let's check out what the mock draft has come up with.  I have tried to objectively pick the players that should be dropped and replaced them with the top available player in that same position, no strategies employed at this point.  I certainly won't back this mock draft up, I fully expect it to be completely different.

Round	Pick	Team	Dropped Player	NHL	Pos	Picked Player	NHL
1	1	Scott Gilmore	Nikolay Goldobin	VAN	F	Blake Coleman	NJD
1	2	Brenda & Seward	Jason Pominville	BUF	F	Mikkel Boedker	OTT
1	3	Derek Bell	Martin Necas	CAR	F	Frank Vatrano	FLA
1	4	Benson Greenley	Corey Crawford	CHI	G	Matt Murray	PIT
1	5	Chelsea Bradley	Andrew Shaw	MTL	F	Nick Bonino	NAS
1	6	Eric Wheeler	Louis Domingue	TAM	G	Pheonix Copley	WAS
1	7	Neil Buysman	Tristan Jarry	PIT	G	Darcy Kuemper	ARI
1	8	Stacey Campbell	Marco Scandella	BUF	D	Alex Pietrangelo	STL
1	9	Jeremy Dieser	Brian Elliott	PHI	G	Laurent Brossoit	WPG
1	10	John Preston	Michael Del Zotto	ANA	D	Nate Schmidt	VGK
1	11	Brian Towers	Antti Raanta	ARI	G	Antti Niemi	MTL
1	12	Tony Dourado	PASS			PASS
1	13	Dale Corley	PASS			PASS
1	14	Derek Wilton	Curtis McElhinney	CAR	G	Jack Campbell	LOS
1	15	Jesse Phalen	Dominik Simon	PIT	F	Micheal Ferland	CAR
1	16	Mike Somerville	Devin Shore	ANA	F	Artturi Lehkonen	MTL
1	17	Ryan Miller	Matt Dumba	MIN	D	Cody Ceci	OTT
1	18	Steve Bishop	Austin Watson	NAS	F	Bryan Rust	PIT
1	19	Clayton Corley	Drake Batherson	OTT	F	Alex Iafallo	LOS
1	20	Troy Berkley	Jordan Staal	CAR	F	Colton Sissons	NAS
1	21	Wes Moroz	PASS			PASS
1	22	Kristy & Don	PASS			PASS
1	23	Grant Saskiw	PASS			PASS
1	24	Stacey McDonald	PASS			PASS
1	25	Stuart Greenley	Michal Neuvirth	PHI	G	Anders Nilsson	OTT

The 25 teams we have in the pool had really stripped away a lot of the talent in the player pool already, so Week Nine had a few new surprise names to make the list, while the Week Eighteen list will be a mix of a couple more surprise names and players that have returned from their long-term injury, which was why they were dropped the first time around.

Blake Coleman of the Devils is the top forward available and since Scott didn't really have a bad goalie, I opted to give him a better forward, but that isn't to say he wouldn't drop one of his goalies for the best player available, Matt Murray of the Penguins.  The first team that needed a goalie, according to my list, was Benson's, but there could be some teams that figure that Murray would be the way to go instead of the mock assigned player.

There were a number of teams that were doing quite well, so far, and I wasn't quite sure whether or not they really needed to make any drops, so you saw some passes in the 1st round, which do carry over to the 2nd round as well.  The point totals of the available players just may not measure up to what these teams could be dropping.

Round	Pick	Team	Dropped Player	NHL	Pos	Picked Player	NHL
2	26	Scott Gilmore	Lars Eller	WAS	F	Ilya Kovalchuk	LOS
2	27	Brenda & Seward	Evan Bouchard	EDM	D	Michal Kempny	WAS
2	28	Derek Bell	Brett Howden	NYR	F	Artem Anisimov	CHI
2	29	Benson Greenley	Zdeno Chara	BOS	D	Travis Sanheim	PHI
2	30	Chelsea Bradley	PASS			PASS
2	31	Eric Wheeler	Joakim Ryan	SAN	D	Brian Dumoulin	PIT
2	32	Neil Buysman	Gustav Forsling	CHI	D	Andy Greene	NJD
2	33	Stacey Campbell	PASS			PASS
2	34	Jeremy Dieser	Tanner Pearson	PIT	F	Nick Ritchie	ANA
2	35	John Preston	Maxime Lajoie	OTT	D	Travis Dermott	TOR
2	36	Brian Towers	Nick Bjugstad	FLA	F	Brandon Tanev	WPG
2	37	Tony Dourado	PASS			PASS
2	38	Dale Corley	PASS			PASS
2	39	Derek Wilton	Ondrej Kase	ANA	F	Casey Cizikas	NYI
2	40	Jesse Phalen	Dan Hamhuis	NAS	D	Niklas Kronwall	DET
2	41	Mike Somerville	PASS			PASS
2	42	Ryan Miller	Miles Wood	NJD	F	Pontus Aberg	MIN
2	43	Steve Bishop	Zach Bogosian	BUF	D	Troy Stecher	VAN
2	44	Clayton Corley	PASS			PASS
2	45	Troy Berkley	PASS			PASS
2	46	Wes Moroz	PASS			PASS
2	47	Kristy & Don	PASS			PASS
2	48	Grant Saskiw	PASS			PASS
2	49	Stacey McDonald	PASS			PASS
2	50	Stuart Greenley	PASS			PASS

The 2nd round is littered with even more passes, as teams just try to fill in some of the last remaining gaps in their roster.  Players sent down to the minors or an injured player are the most likely drops in this round.  The injury/news page has been running fairly short of late, so that means things are picking up in the participation levels.

The rush for goalies was mostly in the 1st round, as teams were trying to make sure that they got a little bit more help in the crease moving forward, while defensemen were also at a premium early and now in the 2nd round, they are just picking up the seat fillers at the awards show at this point.

I'm not sure how much of a bonus round we're going to get with this kind of pick selection already having been done, but this Waiver Draft will extend through to February 3rd, so any injuries that are suffered in the week are eligible to be swapped out in the bonus round.

Remember... rule to note!  Any player dropped in any round will not be eligible to be picked until the next round.  So, for teams like Derek B., who may tank his roster for rookies, all of his players that he may drop in said round, won't be available until the next round, just so the bottom teams do have a shot at those players.

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Dec 4)

The offer was dangled out there, teams had the ability to think it over just a little bit longer and I can confirm that there were a few teams going back and forth about making that last move, debating on whether or not they could get enough out of their replacement players or whether or not the injuries to their current players were as bad as they thought.  The end result, as the clock struck 5pm MT... one move made on the day and that was highlighted below.

Tony was very fortunate that the St. Louis Blues provided their injury assessment on a number of players, including his defenseman, Alex Pietrangelo.  The stud defender will now be on the shelf for the next four or more weeks, pending possible surgery on a hand injury, so Tony, desperately in need of points, opted to go with the best guy available to take his place, Islanders defender Scott Mayfield.

There are no guarantees in the pool, but heading into this week, Pietrangelo and Mayfield were even on points at 11 each, so the move, at face value, seems like a no-brainer.  Of course, if you were building a franchise, one of those names may appear in the conversation, but the other one surely wouldn't.

Two other teams inquired about a possible move, looking at the pending deadline and their injury situation, but I can say that neither team pulled the trigger on the drop/pick combo and as of puck drop in New Jersey between the Lightning and the Devils, our rosters for the second segment were set.

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Dec 3)

No, I didn't think it would have quite over just yet and we still have a number of hours to go before I will officially cut off the bonus round of the Waiver Draft.  There was one more pick on Sunday, when some significant injury news dropped and I was pretty sure the move was going to happen, given which team it happened to.

Derek B. and his band of rookies were able to add one more to their stable after Ilya Kovalchuk's ankle injury turned into a surgical procedure and it would keep him out for at least a month.  Derek added Chicago Blackhawks rookie forward Domnik Kahun, who has found a regular spot in the lineup there day after day.

Derek was able to add four rookie forwards to his group, giving him six in total, but one still lingers in the minors and he is hoping for a return for Martin Necas in Carolina.

We'll touch on the rookie mini-game a little bit more in the Newsletter, which is coming up here shortly.

Before the 5pm MT games were even to the 2nd intermission last night, Steve came swooping through with a couple of changes on his own, finding a couple of injured players on his roster that he felt he could do better with a replacement. 

The first was the injured Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich, who is on the IR with a broken thumb and is expected to be out for another few weeks.  He picked up Alex Killorn of the Lightning, who was dropped earlier in the draft, but provides an adequate upgrade in his top 10 roster.

One of Steve's pickups in the Waiver Draft, Buffalo defenseman Jake McCabe missed time over the weekend and is questionable for tonight's game in Nashville, but he isn't taking any chances.  McCabe is out, fellow Sabres defenseman Zach Bogosian is in.  Adding a little bit more of a veteran presence can't be a bad idea.

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Dec 2)

If you haven't noticed already, I've started to fill in the names on our team pages of the players that we have picked in the Waiver Draft already. Of course, there won't be any points associated to them until Monday, but at least we can see where everyone has landed.  I get to mention that, because the bonus round continued on Saturday, as one more player was dropped and subsequently replaced.

Scott wasn't going to rest on his laurels with a concussion to Carolina's Micheal Ferland, so he opted to keep a healthy body in that place and he picked up Frans Nielsen of the Red Wings to do that for him.  I don't think Scott wants to hang around near the bottom of the standings anymore and he is doing everything in his power to move on up.

That was our only pick of the day yesterday and I think there could be some more serious consideration going on out there for a couple more moves before Monday afternoon.  I've heard rumblings of a couple players here and another player there worth dropping and there are still a couple of interesting names left on the list.

A count on the injury/news page on the website shows that there are still 25 players still eligible to be dropped, because of injury, but in a lot of those cases, there are good arguments to keep them around, instead of dropping them for lesser pickups.  Dale C., for instance, has three players on this list, each of them the top player at their position on his pool team.  Those are some impossible moves to make.

The texting machine and e-mail box are still open for more moves on Sunday/Monday, so if you're humming about a new move, let me know when you want to pull the trigger.

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Dec 1)

I'm sure I could go back through the years of these particular posts and check and see if we ever finished a Waiver Draft's main two rounds before the weekend actually got started, but that's a lot of reading, a needle in a haystack, really, so I will go so far as to say I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened before... but it might have?

Considering how quickly the actual draft went in September, I shouldn't be terribly surprised with how quick everything went this week.  Sure, a couple of hiccups, but nothing too major.  I think the pitchforks and torches only came out once.

By the early part of the afternoon, I had already picked up three bonus round moves, because there were some teams chomping at the bit to drop their last major injury.  Just a reminder, the bonus round is technically open until puck drop on Monday night, when Week Ten officially starts. 

When we left off the storied posts of this Waiver Draft, it was Stuart's pick in the 2nd round, 49th overall and the guy tried to circumvent the rules of trying to pick a goalie dropped in the same round.  What a guy!  So, he passed on the 49th pick.

Troy, on the other hand, was feeling lucky!  He wanted to drop underachieving defenseman Thomas Hickey of the Islanders, but the only name that really jumped out at him was Tampa Bay's injured defenseman Anton Stralman, who isn't set to be reevaluated from his upper-body injury until the middle of next week.  Maybe he'll be ready... maybe he won't?  Nevertheless, I don't think that this gamble will sink his ship, which is sailing pretty well at the moment.

So, with those two slots in the draft now in the books, we moved onto the bonus round, where teams can drop their injured players and pick up healthy bodies to round out their team for the second segment.

Scott led it all off with the dropping of Justin Schultz of the Penguins, he has been hurt since the middle of October and isn't coming back until well into the New Year.  He picked up Ben Hutton of the Canucks to fill the void.

Now that we moved onto the bonus round, Stuart could finally get the goalie he wanted, picking up Michal Neuvirth in Philadelphia, who is returning from injury this weekend, dropping Darcy Kuemper of the Coyotes, who this the Injured Reserve this week with a lower-body injury.  Stuart made big moves in the Waiver Draft last year in the crease and it won him the pool.  Did he do it again?

And finally, Derek B. added to his collection of rookies, picking up another Flyers player in Oskar Lindblom, as he was hanging on to injured Vegas forward Paul Stastny, who could be on the way back to full health in the next week or so, but Derek really wants his money back and this might be the way to go for him.

That's where we've left it, as of Saturday morning.  The doors are still open for a couple days yet, so if you're paying close attention and see an injury you'd like to take care of, shoot me a text, e-mail or a phone call and we can get you sorted out with a healthy body.  All injuries are posted on the news page, just in case you've forgotten.

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Nov 30)

A big thanks to everyone for yesterday's effort through the Waiver Draft, we plowed through a ton of picks, leaving us with just the leaders to tidy up with this morning and now we can shift our focus to the bonus round here right away. Remember, players that are currently injured can be swapped out for someone on the available players list at any time, first come, first serve. The deadline will be Monday's puck drop, 5pm MT, to get that done, as players will be playing right through Sunday and could be eligible to be moved right up until Week Ten officially gets started.

We left off at Benson's pick, the 6th pick of the round, where he dropped Columbus forward Riley Nash and picked up Tyler Bertuzzi of the Red Wings.  Of course, last night, Nash scored his first goal of the season and also had an assist, but it was too little, too late for his play, replaced by Bertuzzi, who has been a fairly consistent contributor this season.

Stacey C. stayed with his theme of sticking with his favourite team, the Edmonton Oilers, dropping the recently demoted Kailer Yamamoto and filling his spot with Alex Chiasson, who is 3rd on the team in goals with 11, getting some regular playing time in the top six there.

With the 33rd overall move in the Waiver Draft, Tony dropped the often scratched Andrew MacDonald in Philadelphia and picked up Erik Gustafsson in Chicago, who has been a regular in the Blackhawks lineup.

More injuries and disappointing offensive numbers forced Dale C. to drop Robby Fabbri of the Blues from his lineup, taking on Washington Capitals forward Brett Connolly for that spot.  Connolly was deemed a more consistent player on a better team, which made the move fairly academic.

Between injuries and some pretty poor results, Wilton pulled the trigger on a big goalie drop in Pittsburgh's Matt Murray and he took the Carolina goalie that has stuck around on the roster, Curtis McElhinney, to start putting some wins together.  Murray is currently out with a lower-body injury and McElhinney has been getting a good portion of the starts for the Hurricanes, so the math checks out.

Brian looked to improve his blueline with the pickup of Jamie Oleksiak of the Penguins and dropping Toronto defender Travis Dermott.  Oleksiak has put up some solid offensive numbers already this season, but he would have really been handy if we were playing in the penalty minutes game this year.

Talking about Carolina goalies, Scott Darling was put on waivers for the purpose of assignment on Thursday and we await the news of whether or not a team would claim him and his big contract or not.  Ryan wasn't going to wait around to find out, dropping him for Minnesota backup, Alex Stalock.  Ryan's team ranks 21st in goalie points and could use all the help he can get.

Neil used his 2nd round pick to dispense of underachieving defenseman Dion Phaneuf from the underachieving Los Angeles Kings and he picked up a Chicago defenseman in Gustav Forsling, increasing the number of Blackhawks defensemen taken in this draft up to two.

Jeremy didn't see any value in what was left on the board, so he took a pass on the 2nd round.

There were some high expectations for Daniel Sprong in Pittsburgh, but they never were reached in the first segment of the season, so Jesse opted to drop him and take the guy that sidled into his spot, Dominik Simon.  Simon has seen some top six play already this season and has produced, so that makes him a good candidate for a pickup.

Wes followed Jeremy's lead and also took a pass in this round.

Another player with some high expectations, only to fall short, was Colorado's Tyson Jost, only had 10 points in 21 games this season.  Steve dug pretty deep in the available player list and found a player with a much better scoring rate, 7 points in eight games, Nashville's Austin Watson, who had a late start to the season, thanks to a suspension.  A savvy move, I must say.

John P. chose to divest a little bit of his rookie stock for the big pay day on Thursday, dropping Casey Mittlestadt from the Sabres in order to pickup Phillip Danault of the Canadiens.  The Canadiens have been surprisingly good this year and Danault has certainly carried some of the load for them, with 14 points already this year.

A move that will try to help both the rookie pool and the overall pool on Clayton's team sees him upgrade a rookie forward from Boston's Ryan Donato to Ottawa's Drake Batherson.  Batherson was called up from the AHL a couple weeks ago and has been excellent for the Senators since his recall, picking up 7 points in his first eight games.

Mike's team was in need of some clutch scoring, currently ranking tied for 18th in the game-winning goals mini-game, so he took a flyer on Dallas' Devin Shore, who led all available players in the category, dropping Derek Ryan of the Flames, who was last among his forwards with only 21 shots on goal and no game-winners.

Kristy & Don are fairly comfortable with their team today, with no injuries to take care of, so they passed on the 2nd round.

A late night move saw Grant look to improve his goaltending, dropping off the oft-injured Michal Neuvirth of the Flyers and picking up Anton Khudobin of the Stars.  Grant opted to make his goaltenders less of a priority at the draft and it seems to have been working out for him, so far, so improving upon those goalies can really only help to improve his side, which is in the hunt to make some money this year.

The last move that I have on the sheet before hitting the publish button was Stacey M. also passing on her 2nd round move.  Her team was also free and clear of any major injury concerns today.

This leaves only Stuart and Troy to decide on their 2nd round moves, if any.  Then we launch right into the bonus round and the free-for-all can begin.

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...

Week Nine Waiver Draft (Nov 28)

The official word on yesterday's delay in the Waiver Draft was Wes has a new phone number and I was texting the old number, so the communication just wasn't there on Tuesday in the day and that's why we had to wait.  We are now back to normal working procedures and have been making some head way, between last night and this morning.  Today's recap will cut off at the last pick I received, which has been moving at a brisk pace already this morning.

Once we got to Wes' pick, he began a pretty good run on picking defensemen, by taking Columbus' Ryan Murray to help his underachieving blueline.  Murray has found his game once again in Columbus and has been putting up some decent numbers with this good scoring team, so it looks like a pretty good add there.

Steve went to the surging Buffalo Sabres for his new defenseman, picking up Jake McCabe, who has been getting some pretty good quality ice-time there this season, just over 19 minutes a game.  With the way that the Sabres have been playing this season, including a 10-game winning streak that they are currently on, picking up a body from that team isn't a bad idea at all.

John P. made a double-whammy pick with Maxime Lajoie from the Senators, taking both a defenseman and a rookie, trying to upgrade his blueline and he increased his stake in the rookie mini-game at the same time.  John's team ranks 2nd in the mini-game and adding another player to his side will only put pressure on the leader.

The team that is the rookie mini-game leader belongs to Clayton, but he didn't opt to improve on that, sneaking the returning Shea Weber out of the list, as he played his first game of the season last night for the Montreal Canadiens.  He opened up the season with an assist, but Clayton's team does not get credit for it, as it happened this week and the players we pick are not active until Monday of Week Ten.

Mike nipped the run of defensemen and started a new run of forwards taken in the draft, as we moved higher in the standings and some of the pool leaders started to make those fine improvements up front to get those key points. Mike went to Columbus as well to pick up Nick Foligno, who has been cashing in on some of the high-scoring action with the Jackets.

The move to Edmonton hasn't helped Ryan Spooner's numbers at all, even if it has been a small sample size.  Kristy & Don are not having any more of his lack of offense, so they opted to pick up Cody Eakin in Vegas, which exploded for big numbers last night in Chicago and could be a big hit moving forward.

Grant is enamored with the Vancouver Canucks, it would seem.  He might have to turn in his Calgary Flames fan card after dropping Sven Baertschi of the Canucks and pick up Jake Virtanen... of the Canucks.  Both have some real Calgary connections, but they still play for the green and blue, which is rather suspicious.

The last pick, almost finishing up the opening round in this post, went to Stacey M. and she went to improve her forwards as well, dumping the slumping Mathieu Perreault in Winnipeg and she added Travis Zajac of the Devils.  It's not a major upgrade, but Zajac has been a little bit more consistent and in a top six role in New Jersey.

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.