Erik to Condition

Recovering from a broken foot, rookie defenseman Erik Johnson (Clayton) will spend a short time with the St. Louis Blues' AHL team for a conditioning stint, despite already playing one game for the Blues after his recovery. Johnson now has a goal and an assist in 3 games with the Blues this season and should more than likely make an impact with the team when he's ready for the big time again. There is a possibility that he'll be ready for Friday's game, but that might be a bit of a long shot at best.

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Week Six Newsletter

Now that we're out of Week Six, we've only got four more working weeks for our Draft players, but we'll actually have our Waiver Draft through the week of Week Ten, where players will be activated in Week Eleven. Chris Osgood in Detroit was the favourite player of the five listed through 8 votes. It looks like the safer pick is more of favourite, while Pascal Leclaire, although he has better numbers, still hasn't earned the trust of the entire crowd.

Speaking of Leclaire and the Blue Jackets, this week's poll question will involve them. Do you think Ken Hitchcock's clan are the real deal? They are tied for the second best record in the West with Minnesota, but thanks to Detroit as the division leaders, they fall off to fourth in the Conference. Are they going to keep this pace up?

Well, there was only one team that cracked the 30-point mark in Week Six, which leaves me to believe that it was a pretty slow week for scoring in the NHL. John P. found himself on top of the heap in the Draft in Week Six with a whopping 34 points, 6 clear of second place in the week. This was John's best week so far in the season and it moved him up from 9th to 6th place, 8 points out of the money positions.

John still had 4 players with 0 points in the week, but had benefitted from Henrik Lundqvist (8 points), David Legwand (5), Nikolai Khabibulin (4) and three players with 3 points in the week. John is still waiting for a few injuries to return to their respective line-ups, which should be fairly soon by the sounds of things, so things are definitely looking up for John.

On the sheet, the Mover was Wes, who had a pool-high 66 points and moved up into 3rd place, from 9th... a massive 6 spots, especially when you're thinking about the top of the standings. Wes had big weeks from Sidney Crosby (7), Joe Thornton (5), Evgeni Malkin (5), Daniel Alfredsson (5) and Martin Brodeur (5).

Dropping 5 spots in the Draft was Don, with a week-low 15 points in Week Six. There were a scary amount of zeros on his team page when the week finished up, seven to be exact. He managed to get some points from his goaltending, but it certainly wasn't enough to keep his standing in the Top 10. Don will start Week Seven in 13th place, 7 points out of the Top 10. He'll need to get Martin Straka back from injury sooner rather than later and a slumping Mark Recchi isn't helping him out too much either. At least Martin Brodeur has started to win for him this season.

In the Sheet pool, Mike Coyne dropped five spots with only 40 points in the week. There were 10 players on Mike's team that didn't register a point, so he fell from 12th place down to 17th in the week. Between a few injuries and a few job losses, there is no real surprise that he fell a little bit. Thankfully for him, none of his injuries seem to be too serious... except for maybe Niklas Kronvall in Detroit.

It's been a busy start to the season for our new Player of the Week. Our winner has played every minute in net for his club to start the season, which is more than you can say for any other goalie in the league thus far, although one or two have come close.

Henrik Lundqvist (John P.) went 3-0-0 with a shutout for 9 points in Week Six. On Monday, he beat the Lightning 3-1... on Thursday, he shutout the Capitals 2-0... and on Saturday, the Devils fell to Lundqvist in the shootout 2-1. Lundqvist doesn't lead the NHL in minutes, as the Rangers haven't played as many games as some teams, but he is still the only goalie to play all his club's minutes at 783. His record to start the season is 6-6-1 with 3 shutouts for 18 points.

The Boston Bruins have gotten off to a pretty good start this season, but Glen Murray (Chris) has not been able to pop in the kind of points he usually could in his career. He didn't register a point in Week Six and he only has 5 points in his first 13 games of the season. Just feeling a little bit of a shiver there.

Well, I don't think anyone could say they're terribly surprised, but Francois Beauchemin (Dale C.) has not quite had the season, points-wise, that he has had previously either. Between the Ducks having a slow start and the return of Mathieu Schneider (John B.) to the line-up... it'll be along season for Beauchemin.

Other News and Notes

After spending the weekend free of games, Niklas Kronvall (Don) had time to rest his injured groin. He's still listed as day-to-day and could very well return in the coming week. The Red Wings don't play again until Wednesday, so there's plenty of time for Kronvall to recover.

There was also some other movement in the last couple weeks. Igor Grigorenko (Dale C.) just couldn't fit anywhere in North America, so the Red Wings sent him back to Russia to play in their Elite League. He didn't even manage to crack the line-up when the injury bug bit, so it's back home for him.

Well, maybe Dan Boyle (Dale C.) was rushed back a little too early from his wrist surgery. He'll sit out a game or two and in the meantime will have another MRI to discover why he isn't getting the strength in his wrist back as quick as he had hoped. This wasn't the news that Dale needed to see when he's fallen well below everyone else.

Young defenseman Ryan Whitney (Stuart) has been out of the line-up for a couple games with a nagging groin injury. Whitney could very well return right away, but the groin is a tricky little injury.

Wild forward Pavol Demitra (Ryan) has re-injured his groin over the weekend and will more than likely sit out against the Oilers tonight. Demitra has already sat a few games this season with the same groin injury, but his return may have also been a bit early.

It's kind of a stunning injury, but Rick DiPietro (Ryan) took a stick in the eye, from underneath his mask and had to leave the game against Pittsburgh on the weekend. A very scary looking injury, but the reports are that the injury isn't very serious and it isn't very likely that DiPietro will miss too many games.

Dimitri Kalinin (Box 17) will be out of the Sabres line-up on a day-to-day basis with a strained knee. He suffered the knee injury against Carolina this past week on a knee-on-knee collision. He wasn't a very popular pick in the Sheet pool, so he won't be missed terribly in the newsletter.

Kings winger Kyle Calder (Box 9) will be out of the line-up for a few more games as he suffered a fractured thumb this past week. He's already missed 2 games, and shouldn't be in your consideration for pick-up in the pool, if necessary.

Hurricanes forward Scott Walker (Box 21) remains out of the line-up with a torso injury, which is understood to be a cartiledge issue in his rib cage. He will now be listed as out indefinitely, as his injury doesn't seem to be healing at all.

The Blue Jackets will continue playing without the services of Fredrik Modin (Box 3) for the time being. He sat out again on Sunday with back spasms and will see very limited ice time until he's 100%.

Well, we've seen a number of healthy scratches this season between the boxes and the Draft, so I just thought I would highlight a few here, while I'm here. The most notable scratch at the moment is Christian Ehrhoff (Don), who sat out Saturday night when the Sharks took on the Kings. He does have 6 points in 13 games, but obviously there must be something missing in his play that the coaches are not liking. Andrew Ference (Box 23) was a scratch for the Bruins on Sunday. His numbers have been down a bit this season, so he got a chance to watch the game from the press box. Duvie Westcott (Box 11), Karlis Skrastins (Box 11) and Mike York (Box 7) have all been scratches as well for their respective teams.

How's your goaltending this season? Feeling a bit rough? Well, the Predators might have a bit of a controversy brewing in the crease and you could possibly benefit from it. Dan Ellis (Box 12) has emerged as a suitable replacement if Chris Mason (Dieter) is to fall below expectations. Ellis hasn't been taken in the draft and is available on the Selection Sheet as well, if you would so wish to use one of your five trades for him as well. Ellis has 4 wins and 2 shutouts this season... so wink, wink... nudge, nudge.

Selection Sheet Trades
Week Seven has plenty of trades activated... so far the most done this season. Jonathan Cheechoo (Box 3) was a pretty popular drop for Paul Statsny (Box 3), while Todd Bertuzzi (Box 9) has been dropped twice because of his concussion injury. Bertuzzi has now been dropped 5 times this season and out of those 5, Patrick Kane (Box 9) has been picked up twice.


Hockey Night in Canada this weekend will have the Battle of Alberta front and centre for the late game at 8pm MT. The league has scheduled the next couple weeks as an inter-divisional period of time and every team will face a divisional opponent for their next 8 games, which should spark up all the rivalries, including the one here in Alberta. The Flames have been playing fairly well of late, their scoring is certainly up, thanks to a healthy Jarome Iginla (Aaron). Edmonton's youth movement will have to contain the high-powered offense and then take advantage of the less-than stellar Calgary defense. Both Andrew Cogliano and Sam Gagner haven't been utilized in any pool this season, but they might be worth scouting for the Waiver Draft.


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Quite a Few More Injuries

Being as though I'm a Canucks fan, this does make the season a little worse. I know they aren't doing too much... almost makes me glad I don't have any in the draft. But it goes from bad to worse this week as both Kevin Bieksa (Peter) and Sami Salo (John B.) both hit the injured list again. Bieksa had a skate lacerate his calf, which could keep him out of the line-up for at least a couple weeks. Salo, on the other hand, took a puck to the face and it had broke his orbital bone around his eye and that is more of a long-term injury.

With these injuries, Luc Bourdon (Box 11) has now been called up from Manitoba and will join the team for their next game on Saturday night against Colorado.

Top-line forward Jason Spezza (Chris) is out day-to-day with a groin injury. Over the long lay-off for the Sens, it has turned out that Spezza didn't do enough in practice to keep it warm and tweaked it a bit. He has missed one game already and should miss the weekend games, according to several reports online. This isn't the best news for a lot of people counting on Spezza to take his cut from the big line's production.

The Washington Capitals are again without Russian winger, Alexander Semin (Dale C.), with a recurring ankle problem. Semin has already missed a boatload of games due to this ankle injury and now should miss a few more to make sure that it is all healed up before heading out on the ice again. There's nothing worse than when one of your potential top scorers cannot get healthy. The Capitals are also without Chris Clark (Box 19) with an ear injury after taking a slapshot to the head, Tom Poti (Stuart) with a groin injury, and Steve Eminger (Box 22) is yet to play a game this season with an ankle injury.

There's a time and a place for every injury. With Tim Thomas (Box 24) picking up the slack in Boston, it doesn't seem so bad that Manny Fernandez (Marcus) has gone down with a bit of a knee knock. Fernandez shouldn't be out of the line-up for too long, but the Bruins have made a call-up from the minors to sit as Thomas' back-up while Fernandez is out.

Forward Ryan Clowe (Box 8) has suffered a knee injury this season and will be off the roster on a day-to-day basis. I don't believe he was very popular on the selection sheet, but in case you do actually have him... he's probably not going to see much time in the next few days.

With most of their big guns returning this week, the Wild are now without defenseman Kim Johnsson (Box 4) with a bruised leg. It doesn't sound like much, does it? Well, apparently, it might keep Johnsson out of the line-up for a couple games, more than likely through the weekend. It's a pretty lopsided box anyways and it isn't very likely that anyone picked him up lately.


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