Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 5)

It took a little while to get going on Wednesday, but once we got the ball rolling, the picks and the passes came fairly fast and furious.  Thanks to the lack of chances for money down the stretch, there did seem to be a lack of interest in making the smallest of changes, as some teams didn't seem to mind being in the Olli Jokinen bobblehead race and the subsequent shame they may feel when they have their picture taken with it.

Thanks to the large amounts of passing yesterday, we managed to make it through 11 teams, but only four players were dropped and another four were picked up, which makes this post much easier than it may sound.

Wes decided to pass in the end, as his one injury to Tommy Wingels in San Jose doesn't really distress him, as he should be back in the Sharks' lineup in the next week or two, as he heals from his broken hand.  Wes obviously didn't think there was much out there that could improve on his numbers.

Clayton, however, did elect to make a change in his under-performing forward ranks, as he dropped a Week Nine pick-up as well, Linden Vey of the Canucks, and opting for the now-healthy Jordan Staal in Carolina.  Staal came back from a broken leg in the middle of the second segment and was definitely going to be a target in this Waiver Draft and it's surprising he lasted as long as he did.

It sounded like Grant S. had the same idea, as Clayton poached his pick, opting instead to go with the best player available on the list, Mika Zibanejad of the Ottawa Senators, dropping Johan Franzen of the Red Wings to get him.  Franzen has been dealing with an upper-body injury, which sounds like a concussion and Zibanejad has been doing well in Ottawa, since being dropped nine weeks ago.

Pool leaders, Kristy & Don, are going to run the whole season untouched, by the sound of things.  Even with a long-term injury to Mikkel Boedker, their current lead of 71 points will likely run unopposed in the third segment, so they will stay the course.

And then it was on to round two of the draft, but Wyllie's team, which has since moved out of the basement, had determined that his current team, with a few day-to-day injuries, won't likely improve with this batch of available players, so they'll try to stay out of the bobblehead race with what they have.

In a stunning move, Allan opted to make a "protest move," by dropping Vincent Lecavalier of the Flyers and taking AHL'er Mike Richards, who was dropped the round before.  This may ensure that Allan finishes with a couple of last place bobbleheads on his mantle this Summer, since he already leads in the least amount of skater games played and currently his behind 22nd place by a point.

Much like Wyllie above him, Ryan didn't have much to drop away from his team, as they were all healthy and starting to play relatively well again, so he moved on.

Mike and Leo passed in the first round, so the second round pass was a no-brainer.

Grant K. had one injury that he wanted to move away from, one of his Week Nine pick-ups didn't play much for him, Devils defenseman Damon Severson, so he opted to pick up the hot and unknown Kevin Connauton in Columbus.  Connauton was picked up from Dallas this season and has been a scoring marvel ever since.

The final decision was Benson deciding to pass, as he had moved out of the basement already and cleaned up a relatively cold forward.  To his team's credit, they currently sit in 3rd place in the second segment of the season, but had only moved up to 17th place, to date.

So, now we're on the final stretch of moves, if they need to be done, for the competitive teams.  We are just waiting on Stuart to make his pick, I have Stacey C.'s next pick, but we may be a little while before we get the pick from down under, as at the time of this post, Brian is resting up for his Friday, which likely means a couple Fosters with some koala bears.

More Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 4)

The New York Rangers have announced that their number one goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, will be out of the lineup for tonight's game against the Boston Bruins, due to an upper-body injury. There is some indication that the injury might in the throat area, but the team would not confirm the nature of the injury, nor the severity. Lundqvist will undergo some tests to figure out more information, while Cam Talbot will get the start in his place.

For Brenda & Seward, they can take some relief that they already have their win in the survivor pool, but they have recently moved into 9th place, largely because of Lundqvist, and staying there or moving up would require his services.  Lots of hope that he's only day-to-day.

On the Waiver Draft side, do some of the teams in need of goaltending, finally have a look at Talbot?  The kid has a points rate of 1.44 per 60 minutes, but doesn't get many minutes to put that to good use.

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced on Wednesday afternoon that Evgeni Malkin will be good to go against the Edmonton Oilers and I complete expect the official announcement for his removal from the Injured Reserve to come shortly.  Malkin has been out since the All-Star Break with an undisclosed injury.

Crisis averted for Leo, who likely wasn't going to drop Malkin, but you just never know!  I don't think he reads the blog, so I could just assume that he was going to drop Malkin and make him look crazy.  Ha ha!

Only three games in the NHL tonight, so I'll give you a quick goalie preview for the night.

In the Big Apple, it was mentioned that Cam Talbot, who is available for selection in the Waiver Draft, will be taking on Tuukka Rask and the Bruins.  Dale B. gets the only pool start in this game.

At Rexall Place, the Edmonton Oilers will play host to the Pittsburgh Penguins.  In this one, it will be Viktor Fasth hosting Marc-Andre Fleury, Stacey C. versus Clayton in net.

Finally, in the late game, the Flames play host to the Sharks at the Saddledome, Alex Stalock will get one last kick at the can for Scott, while Jonas Hiller goes for Leo in the home net.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 4)

Well, Day 3 of the Waiver Draft hasn't really kicked off quite yet, as we're still waiting on Wes to make his first decision of the period.  We did alright on Tuesday, making nine drops and picks and almost completing the first round.  Obviously, some decisions are easier to make for some, than they are for others.

Opening up the day on Tuesday was Dale B. and you can't fault him for trying to find a little bit more offense from up front, as he dropped Toronto's Mike Santorelli and decided to pick up rookie Ottawa forward Mike Hoffman.  Dale is 23 points back in the rookie scoring race, but since he's added one of the top rookies in the league this year, he will have a couple going for him at the same time.

With the 12th pick, Wilton also tried to shore up some of his forward scoring, dropping Florida's Jimmy Hayes and picking up Anaheim's Patrick Maroon, trying to source the NHL's top team for a little bit of residual offense from their depth chart.  Maroon has been up and down in the Ducks' lineup, but there is always a chance for points there.

The first player deemed done for the year, Tampa Bay defenseman Radko Gudas, was dropped by Brenda & Seward and in his place, they decided to take Rangers blueliner Kevin Klein, who has been operating well out of his normal career scoring records.  If Klein can keep that sort of pace, the pool's second duo can continue to climb up the standings in an amazing comeback this year.

There was a lot of humming and hawing from the teams that made earlier selections in the pool, debating on whether or not Petr Mrazek of the Detroit Red Wings would be a suitable pick-up, citing the soon-to-return Jimmy Howard and/or Jonas Gustavsson, but Scott decided that he would go with the Czech keeper, dropping San Jose's Alex Stalock to make room.

As Stacey M. put it, she'll be "moving mediocre for mediocre," which is the motto of these late season Waiver Drafts, I think.  Stacey dropped Montreal's Lars Eller, who recently picked up a knock, but is continuing to push through it, while picking up Florida's Brad Boyes, one of the more popular pick-ups all-time in the draft pool.

Troy wasn't going to hang on a semi-washed up centre in Mike Richards, who the LA Kings opted to send down to the minors, possibly to find some more ice-time and regain his confidence.  In Richards' place, Anaheim's Kyle Palmieri will take his place, as Troy only moves across the State of California for more qualified help.  The Ducks have been popular already, hey?

While taking some time down in Panama at the moment, Tony has still been able to make his first move in the Waiver Draft, dropping a soon-to-be-healthy Jonas Gustavsson of the Red Wings and picked up Flyers back-up Ray Emery to take his place.  Gustavsson is quite the wild card, injury-wise, so picking up Emery should give him greater odds of more starts in the third segment.

The legend, Martin Brodeur, was dropped for only the second time in this hockey pool's history, but this time, it will be for the last time, as Dale C. needed to move him out to have an active body in his lineup.  In Brodeur's place, Montreal's Dustin Tokarski will have the go-ahead, but his minutes have been limited by another Canadian goaltending icon in Carey Price, so his points potential does seem to be low, but mostly because of his minutes.

Finally, the last move made on Tuesday night was Cam dropping another defenseman that has already been deemed, done for the year, letting go of Pittsburgh's Olli Maatta and picking up Columbus' David Savard to fill the void.  Savard has been quietly going about his business and doing quite well, picking up 17 points in 49 games to this point in the year.

As of the time I finished writing this post, I still haven't heard much from Wes, so I will remain somewhat skeptical that we will get too far on Wednesday, but finishing the opening round shouldn't be out of the question.

The top forward available as of now, Ottawa's Mika Zibanejad, who was a drop earlier this year by Stacey M., but has been decent of late.  The top defensemen, Washington's Karl Alzner or Ottawa's Cody Ceci, both with 14 points and Ceci would help your rookie race, if you wanted.  Boston's Niklas Svedberg is the top goalie, also a rookie, but is currently on a conditioning stint in the AHL, expected back soon.

Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 4)

Another injury I have somewhat missed the boat on in the last few weeks was that of Alex Chiasson of the Senators, who missed his second straight game, due to an undisclosed injury, on Tuesday night.  The young forward was reportedly hurt on Thursday last week and was put on the injury list as out day-to-day.  Since then, there really hasn't been anything posted on the kid and the Senators have gone 1-1-0 in his absence, so there couldn't be very much panic there at the moment.

In 44 games with the Sens this season, Chiasson only has 8 goals and 18 points, ranking him 279th overall in pool scoring, just below a couple of dropped players already this year.  Does this mean that Wilton may consider dropping him?  I suppose there is a certain possibility, depending on some other injury situations.

It was not a warm homecoming story for Winnipeg's Evander Kane, rather it was a frosty return to Vancouver, made possible by Jets head coach Paul Maurice, making him into a healthy scratch for the game against the Canucks.  Kane has obviously drawn the ire of his coaches and likely with some family and friends in the stands, Kane was not on the ice and there have been very few reasons given as to why or how long the coach intends to keep him out.  It kinda has that trading away feel to it, doesn't it?

I'm sure Grant K. wouldn't mind seeing one of his supposed goal scorers make the move to another NHL city, just for a fresh start and possibly a revitalized future in the league.  Grant's team hasn't had a bad start to the week, but his projected numbers for the rest of the week are not very good.

In something that would better resemble just some simple paperwork, the Tampa Bay Lightning have officially sent Evgeni Nabokov to the AHL after clearing waivers earlier in the week.  The expectation is that the veteran keeper won't report and start the process of filing some retirement papers, since he wouldn't be paid, if he was suspended for not reporting to the AHL.

Grant K. is already on top of this movement, as he has made Nabokov into his opening round drop of this week's Waiver Draft.  It would seem unlikely that Nabokov would have made a start this week anyways, so the loss to his team is minimal, but picking up someone new has some serious upside.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

More Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 3)

It has been a crazy week and a bit, so there has been no goalie starting updates lately, let alone some blog posts on some days.  Thanks to a Waiver Draft, I am paying a little more attention to the blog, so how about some goalie info today?

Let's start with the survivor pool, as Brenda & Seward stayed alive with a Henrik Lundqvist win on Monday night, Kristy & Don will likely get their shot to stay in with a Frederik Andersen start for the Ducks, lining up against the Hurricanes in the late game on Tuesday night.

Other notable starters tonight include Robin Lehner continuing to take the reps for the Senators, Brian Elliott going for the Blues and Devan Dubnyk owning the Wild net.

As for non-pool starts, meaning goalies not active in the pool and likely still available in the Waiver Draft, Al Montoya is probable for the Panthers on back-to-back nights, while Anton Forsberg will get a start for the Blue Jackets, Carter Hutton is the probable goalie for the Predators, Anton Khudobin up for the Canes and Eddie Lack will likely go for the Canucks.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Lehtera Suffering From Concussion Symptoms

A tweet this morning from one of the best beat writers in the game dropped some confirmation that St. Louis Blues forward Jori Lehtera is dealing with some concussion symptoms, which will likely cause the free agent signing to miss a bit more time than initially believed.

Armstrong says Berglund is dealing with a shoulder injury and Lehtera is dealing with concussion symptoms. #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) February 3, 2015

Lehtera was hurt in Thursday night's game against the Blues' division rivals from Nashville and ended up missing two games already with the injury.  With concussion protocol what it is, this should mean that the 27-year old Finn will be eligible to return around Thursday in Buffalo, but tests would have to be passed and clearance would have to be given.

As of Tuesday morning, he has not received any clearance or done any tests, the only update is what we've seen above.  If he is still dealing with the symptoms, it does seem rather unlikely that he would be able to pass a test on Thursday.

Grant S. can't be too disappointed with the season he has already had from his last pick, a 14th rounder, 309th overall this season.  In 46 games played, Lehtera has 9 goals and 30 points, which is good enough to be ranked 130th overall in pool scoring after Monday night's action.

The real question becomes whether or not Grant gambles this week on the health of his key winger.  Grant has been dealing with some injury problems of late and his padding between 2nd and 3rd place has dwindled in the process.  Can Grant hold on with Lehtera to see if he comes back sooner, rather than later, or does he cave in and try to pick up some points right away to band aid over the bleeding?

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 3)

The Waiver Draft did see a little bit of movement on Monday night, reaching ten teams making moves in total on the first day of the second swapping season.  Tuesday isn't necessarily the best day for making moves, since the schedule on the Opiated Sherpa's part gets a little busy in the evening, but I'm sure he'll make some time to get some of the moves in before the end of the night.

Just to give a quick recap of how Monday night finished, we'll start right with where we finished the two passes, due to a lack of interest.

Grant K. saw the move that saw his number two goalie get dumped by his NHL club, dropping the likely-to-retire, Evgeni Nabokov, and he picked up Antti Raanta of the Blackhawks.  It's one back-up for another, but at least his replacement will see some time and likely a few more wins as well.  In the next day or so, we'll probably have a Nabokov retirement post, so stay tuned.

In a swap of rookies, Benson dropped the mildly disappointing Evgeny Kuznetsov, who hasn't really seen as many points as he was projected to have in Washington and he picked up the surging Mark Stone in Ottawa, who is finally making some noise after a great junior career.

The other Greenley also needed some help in net this year and with Sergei Bobrovsky on the shelf, Stuart noticed that maybe Curtis McElhinney would have been a pretty good pick-up and he dropped Leafs back-up, James Reimer to make that one happen.  Stuart pulled an extra few points on his brother in the standings on Monday night and now is racing him to a higher finish and some bragging rights.

Stacey C. didn't really get the results he was looking for from one of his Week Nine pick-ups, dropping Kris Versteeg, who only had 5 points in the last eight weeks in the pool and is now pinning his hopes of a top 10 finish on Michal Frolik of the Jets, who was one of the top forwards available going into the week.

Finally on Monday night, Brian came from down under to make his pick, although it was the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday, so it was pretty easy, to make a defenseman swap.  Andy Greene of the Devils wasn't doing the job for him, so he picked up Justin Braun from San Jose to take his spot and hopefully generate some offense.

If we plow through a bunch more picks today, I'll probably do another post with an update, but that's how far we've made it and it sounds like we have people on point, waiting to make their moves.

Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 3)

Flames forward Mikael Backlund missed out on Monday night's game, hosting the Jets, due to an illness that has been going around the locker room in Calgary. It doesn't sound like the team expects him to miss much more time on top of this one game, because he was a game-time decision for last night's contest, which likely meant that he wasn't feeling too bad, just not great.

Backlund has missed more than his fair share of games this season, but when he has been in, he has been fairly decent for Wyllie, who has collected 14 points in 21 games.  Assuming that Backlund isn't out for too long, Wyllie should be back to collecting points again from him before too long.

Things thought to be a-okay with Taylor Hall, making a return from a bone bruise in his leg last night against the Sharks, but the return didn't last very long, as he left the game in San Jose with an apparent foot injury.  Hall did manage to have an assist in his brief appearance in the Oilers lineup, bringing his season totals up to 30 points in 42 games played, but injuries are really starting to stack up on him, even if they are brief in timetables.

Another injury for Wyllie's team, which has been fairly unlucky this season.  Wyllie ranks 20th in the pool in skater games played and 22nd in goalie minutes, the two statistics you don't really want to be down at the bottom of to compete in the season.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Week Eighteen Waiver Draft (Feb 2)

I was ill-prepared today to get the Waiver Draft properly moving, but nevertheless, I got some guys off the ground and we're on our way to getting the stretch run completely underway.  Without proper methods of uploading all the updated standings, draft positions and available players, I still managed to get through five teams and their drops/picks to start the day.

By virtue of the goal-scoring tie-breaker, Wyllie lost to Allan, 93-88, so he took the 1st pick in the pool, dropping Calgary forward Josh Jooris and taking the previously dropped Winnipeg Jets forward, Mathieu Perreault.  I thought Wyllie would go drop a goalie to start, trying to capitalize on some of whatever is left on the shelf there.

Allan decided to take care of his long-term injury concern, Islanders forward Kyle Okposo and exchanging him for Mike Fisher of the Nashville Predators, who has already had his big injury for the year, so he should be good for the rest of the year, in theory.  Fisher has a greater points-per-game average than Perreault (0.79 to 0.65), so that could end up being a pretty sneaky pick.

With the third pick, Ryan just phoned in an easy pick, as Anaheim goalie John Gibson, who was relegated to the minors, was his drop and in his place will be Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who will now act as Ben Bishop's back-up, now that the days of Evgeni Nabokov appear to be over.  Vasilevskiy has 6 points in four appearances, so he also could be a pretty sneaky pick, in the end.

The four and five picks in the draft ended up being passes, as Mike made no plans to make any changes and possibly include a rookie in his lineup, while Leo couldn't find an adequate Flame or former Flame to occupy a spot on his team, despite his team having a regular scratch in Lee Stempniak.

This is where we stand in the evening, thus far.  I am just waiting on hearing from Grant K. and then we should be rolling right along again.  Tuesday should be a much better day on the blog, as I should have some better updating capabilities throughout.

Surgery Sidelines Shattenkirk

A huge blow to the St. Louis Blues was dealt on Monday evening, as the team announced that they will be without All-Star defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk for an indefinite period of time.

The word is that the 26-year old blueliner was hurt on the weekend against the Capitals and that in about a week's time, he will undergo surgery for his abdominal area and the team will have him listed as out week-to-week, with no definite timetable for a return.

Shattenkirk has been so good this season, picking up 8 goals and 40 points in 49 games this season for the Blues, which is good enough for 50th overall in pool scoring, going into Monday night's action.  That has him alone in 2nd place in scoring among defensemen this season and he was on pace to decimate his previous career highs in points, which he set last season, 45 points in 81 games.  With only nine weeks to go in the season, he may be in tough to break some records, especially if he misses half that time due to injury.

A tough decision now faces Tony, who has been relying heavily on the American-born blueliner, does he try to find points elsewhere or does he sit on Shattenkirk and hope for a speedy recovery?  Tony sits in 7th place, 25 points out of the money, and is now with out his best defenseman and 3rd-best player overall on his team.

There isn't going to be many options for Tony to choose from in this Waiver Draft, especially if he's looking for someone who can fill the points per game pace that Shattenkirk was offering.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.

Week Seventeen Newsletter

The order for the second Waiver Draft has now been set, if you're going to make some changes to your team for the final stretch run of the season, either to move away from a shameful finish or to possibly make a move to help your team vault into a money position, this week will be the week of changes and starting a week today, all those changes will go live and we'll be ready to go.

First things first though, let's see how last week was on the pool.

There was a pretty good push by the goalies for the Player of the Week nod, as there were a couple of backstops that finished off the week with 8 points, but it was a the second coming of Price that took the top spot in Week Seventeen.

Carey Price played in three games in the week, going 3-0-0 and picking up back-to-back shutouts for a 10-point performance, only the third week with a double-digit Player of the Week this season and Price's second nod of the year.  His first coming in Week Six.

Price beat the Dallas Stars on Tuesday, shutout the New York Rangers on Thursday and followed that up with a shutout over the Washington Capitals on Saturday.  When Price takes back to the net, he'll be working on his career-long shutout streak, which I believe has hit the 150-minute mark already.

With the massive week he had, Price has now moved up to 3rd place overall in pool scoring, only 2 points back of the injured Pekka Rinne for top spot in the overall scoring race, now with 63 points in only 39 appearances this year.

Price was taken with the 16th overall selection in this year's draft and is proving to be a pretty good bargain within the opening round of the draft.  He was taken by Wes, who is right in the thick of the 3rd place money action, thanks in large part to his number one keeper.  As Price goes, as will Wes, by the look of things.

There really wasn't much doubt from the early part of the week that Kristy & Don would be well on their way to another Mover & Shaker Award, since the week opened up with a 5-assist performance from defenseman Kristopher Letang and it was like a snowball rolling down a hill from there on.

The pool's number one duo has now increased their lead to 66 points, thanks to a 34-point week in Week Seventeen and their third Mover & Shaker nod in the last five weeks.

Despite having two significant injuries to both Pekka Rinne in Nashville and Mikkel Boedker in Arizona, the rest of the team continues to score at will, embarrassing the rest of the pool with their proficiency.  Letang finished with 7 points on the week, Alex Ovechkin had 5 points, while four other players had 4 points each.

There doesn't seem to be any end in sight for this avalanche of points and with that giant lead of theirs, the only hope is that they drop a couple of their key players and give the rest of the pool a chance.  Sure, it doesn't seem likely at all, but one could hope, couldn't they?

Something that you don't want to have while you're in the midst of the money race is an appearance in the Basement Dweller paragraphs, but that's where Cam finds himself this week.

Cam's team has been good for the better part of the season, starting Week Seventeen in the money, sitting pretty in 3rd place, but after picking up only 10 points, his team fell down to 5th spot and is now 13 points back of the last money spot.

Of course, being so close and improving your Waiver Draft position isn't a terrible thing, you at least ensure that you have the chance at making a better pick than your competitors, but then you have to make good on that.

Cam had no help from his goaltenders in the week and he had four more active zeroes on his roster in the week as well, while his top two players in the week were  Frans Nielsen on Long Island and Matt Niskanen with the Capitals, each picking up a couple points in the week.

I'm sure his team will bounce back here soon, we've all seen these weeks before, it's nothing to be too worried about.  Better to happen now than in Week Twenty-Six.

TROPHY TALK

Okay, so we've already talked about Kristy & Don and how great their lead is.  Now Grant S. does appear to be losing a bit more of his grip on that 2nd place lead, which was 38 points at the start of the week, but is now down to 36 points after the week.  Okay, that isn't nearly as exciting, but it is slowly going down.

This week's 3rd place finisher is Clayton, his third time in the position, but only 1 point up on Wes, who has consistently been finishing in 4th place by week's end, ever since he jumped up from 10th place in Week Thirteen.

The second segment in the hockey pool season is going into its final week and yes, Kristy & Don have a significant lead there too.  They are one of only two teams to hit the 200-point mark in the segment, although there will be a bunch more by the end of this week, I'm sure.  Kristy & Don sit at 238 points, while Brenda & Seward are at 200 points, while Wes and Benson are at 195 points.

As for the Olli bobblehead race, this is where the real action is, right?  At the end of Week Seventeen, Wyllie would be the recipient of the trophy, if the season were to end today, only edging out Allan by the goals tie-breaker and Ryan by only 1 point.  It looks like there could be a couple more horses in this race before too long, as Mike has dropped down to 5 points out and Leo is only 7 points out, so the Waiver Draft becomes more interesting at the bottom.

Allan does seem to want to run away with the Jordan bobblehead though, as his team suffered with the least amount of skater games played in the week, tied with Wilton and Grant S., but he has now opened up a 9-game gap at the bottom.  Allan will get the chance to move out some of his injured bodies and try to make up some games, but his luck this season has been horrible and this trophy is the best measure of that.

WINNING EVERY WEEK

Being down to one goalie has made the last couple weeks somewhat hairy for Kristy & Don, but their remaining goaltender belongs to the best team in the NHL, so they have managed to squeak out at least one win in the last couple weeks.  It really makes Brenda & Seward's 2 wins in the week seem pretty awesome, but both teams stay alive for another week and a busy week it will be.

ROOKIE SCORING

It was a pretty busy week in rookie scoring, as a lot of teams with rookies ended up with points.  Wilton and Mike each picked up a pair of points, while Grant S. had 3 points, Dale C. had 4 points and Dale B., down a ways in these standings, had 6 points, now up to 15 on the season.

Wilton still leads with 37 points, still 4 points up on Mike and 9 points up on Grant S..

I know there isn't any money on this particular statistic right now, but I would be interested to see how many rookies get picked up in the Waiver Draft this week, possibly making this a little more interesting down the line.

LIGHTING THE LAMP

The six teams still streaking in the goal-scoring survivor pool are still alive and are likely looking forward to a big week.  No one dropped off in Week Seventeen and these teams are going to have to have a really bad week, since there are going to be 50 NHL games in Week Eighteen, a great way to finish the segment.

Grant K., Kristy & Don, Stacey M., Wilton, Ryan and Stacey C. are all still alive with at least 3 goals scored every week.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Scoring in the pool has been on a healthy decline, which means that the Waiver Draft can't come at a better time.  Skater games collected were down, goalie minutes collected were down and scoring didn't even make 500 total points in 45 NHL games this week.  At only 480 collected points in Week Seventeen, there just didn't seem to be enough points to go around, where more teams felt the pinch then others, obviously.

It will be much better in the pool, when we get rid of those players who are buried in the minors or out for the season with injuries, right?

NEWS AND NOTES

An upper-body injury was the cause of Martin Hanzal's absences at the end of the week and by the sound of things, he is already slated to miss a third consecutive game, already being ruled out of Tuesday's contest against Columbus.  There wasn't a lot of detail given on the injury to Hanzal, but he is still considered to be day-to-day at this point in time.

For Troy, Hanzal was a decent pick-up in the Week Nine Waiver Draft, but some other injuries had really kept him from cashing in too well with his new player.  In 16 games since Week Nine, Hanzal picked up 3 goals and 11 points, which made him into a pretty good pick.  Can Troy find more of that magic this week?

It sounds like the Montreal Canadiens are quite happy with what they've been getting from defenseman Sergei Gonchar, since picking him up from the Dallas Stars earlier in the year. Given that he is 40 years old though, they want to protect their asset and it sounds like Gonchar may not play many back-to-back games down the stretch, likely to save his legs for a playoff run.  Likely a wise move, but one that may hurt the scoring numbers down the stretch.

Wes couldn't be too sad with his numbers, picking up 8 assists in 19 games played, to this point since the Week Nine Waiver Draft.  It doesn't sound like Gonchar will miss too many more games, but it likely would be much better to rest him every once and a while, instead of risking injury that could cost him more games.

Link to the Injury/News Page

Player Notes in the Draft (Feb 1)

It hasn't been a great week for updates, nothing has quite worked out all week to be consistent in the blog writing game.  Nevertheless, we are on the cusp of Waiver Draft week and this will be a week where I'll be staying on top of everything, starting now.  Welcome to February, everyone... we are almost into the final third of the season.

The New Jersey Devils are in their own healthy scratch rotation this season, something we've seen on a few teams already this year. The last two games, Friday night at home to the Penguins and Saturday, home to the Panthers, defenseman Eric Gelinas was a healthy scratch for the side.  Gelinas has been somewhat of a regular healthy scratch, picking up 15 games in the press box this season and has been a semi-regular on the blog as well.  When he has been playing, he has 4 goals and 11 points in 34 games, only good enough for 424th overall in pool scoring today.

Gelinas has been the less of the four defensemen that Wilton has taken this season and in my Week Eighteen Waiver Draft mock-up, he was a drop in the 2nd round, so it will be interesting to see if Wilton will move on from him.  Wilton finishes the week in line for the Basement Dweller, with 10 points and no games left to play, down in 12th place and could drop one spot still, to better his draft position.

We are waiting to hear what the final results are on the tests being done to defenseman Christian Ehrhoff and his upper-body injury, although it is beginning to sound a lot like a concussion. Ehrhoff was not able to play on Friday night in New Jersey and it sounds like he is out for Sunday's game against the Predators, but these tests will reveal whether or not he'll be able to play on the next road trip, which starts next week through Western Canada.  He's day-to-day right now, but it could turn around pretty quickly and it might mean he'll be out indefinitely.

Brian has had a very disappointing season from his blueline, where no one has been anywhere near where they should have been, including Ehrhoff, who only has 13 points in 43 games this season.  By my mock-up, he will be changing a couple blueliners next week, but he might need a lot more than that to get up to the top 10 this year.

There appears to be another bug traveling around the Calgary Flames locker room this week and on Saturday night, it held forward Jiri Hudler out of action for their game against their provincial rivals, the Oilers. Hudler is believed to be out day-to-day for now and his availability for Monday's game, home to the Jets, does seem somewhat likely, but we'll see.

Hudler is having an okay year for Mike in the pool, picking up 14 goals and 41 points, but overall, Mike's team has been a little less than impressive, down in 20th place, only 3 points clear of 21st.  Mike will need to make a big move at the Waiver Draft to keep from staying in contention for the Olli.

A late note from Sunday morning, as the Tampa Bay Lightning have placed veteran goalie Evgeni Nabokov on waivers, but there has been no indication about what this will mean for the 39-year old keeper. The team has already recalled Andrei Vasilevskiy from the AHL, so Nabokov may make his way down to the AHL, while he waits to see if anyone will want him around, but after what Martin Brodeur went through, it does seem rather unlikely that anyone will take that chance.

I don't think it is any coincidence that Nabokov was the first drop for Grant K. in my mock Waiver Draft last week, but at the time, Grant was dropping/picking in the 7th overall spot, now he'll likely go 6th, as he had been bumped in the week.  There isn't much for goaltending left, but anyone who is playing will be better than Nabokov.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.