Waiver Draft Completed and Scrutinized

Only six days late, here are the results of the first waiver draft. For once I was not being lazy and stupid, I just had no time! So still stupid but not lazy. That was a busy week! I haven’t had a week that busy since last week. I will now take a couple of hours out of my only day off to post the results. I say nothing of the pain and inconvenience this will cause me.

I know you’ve been champing at the bit to see the results of the draft in the pool you share with friends from your halcyon days in your old stamping grounds. I won’t keep you on tenterhooks any longer.

There were some interesting choices to say the least. I think when an owner is disappointed with a player they often give up too soon, forgetting that even if he’s not producing at the desired level, he’s still a better bet to have more points than that bum you picked in the waiver. But most of the drops really are bums. Here we go:

	Owner	Team	Dropped	Picked
Round 1:
1	Methot	Nova Scotia Nuthatches	Heinen	Chabot
2	Paul	Vegreville Vegans	Kase	Meier
3	Ro	St. Albert Dutch Ovens	Backes	Kerfoot
4	Kyle	Koln Komets	Pearson	Tierney
5	Jeff	Cowboy Trail Smoke Eaters	Shattenkirk	Pominville
6	Greg	Hoboken Screaming Aardvarks	Tolvanen	Dzingel
7	Bill	Minsk Uzbeks	Donato	Ferland
8	Pat	Edmonton Albinos	Janmark	McDonough
9	Bob	Istanbul Walking Birds	Ryan	Kapanen
10	Mark	Camrose Solar Bears	Pacioretty	Petry
Round 2:
1	Methot	Nova Scotia Nuthatches	PASS
2	Paul	Vegreville Vegans	Schultz! Office!	B. Ryan
3	Ro	St. Albert Dutch Ovens	PASS
4	Kyle	Koln Komets	PASS
5	Jeff	Cowboy Trail Smoke Eaters	PASS
6	Greg	Hoboken Screaming Aardvarks	Bjorkstrand	Soderberg
7	Bill	Minsk Uzbeks	PASS
8	Pat	Edmonton Albinos	PASS
9	Bob	Istanbul Walking Birds	Hamilton	B. Tkachuk
10	Mark	Camrose Solar Bears	PASS

Only three owners chose to drop two players in this waiver, even though history shows that it is better to do so rather than wait until the second waiver to use two picks. I think. But if you get hit by injuries later and you only have one pick left in the second draft, you are royally screwed, like Megan Markle.

Methot got the first pick by virtue of having a horrible roster that has no chance of ever contending. He got the amazing Chabot, who had a big points lead among all available players. I think Paul could have hung on to Kase now that he’s back, but did well to get Meier. Mark unfortunately went away on holidays about a week before the draft, so he sent his list in early (apparently they have no internet where he went). He dropped Pacioretty, who at the time was struggling but now is the hottest player this side of Patrik Laine and is beloved and admired by all. No way would Mark have dropped him if he’d waited. It could be costly, since at the time of the waiver Mark was actually in first place. Pacioretty has 15 points now, and Mark’s pickup, Petry, has 17. And Weber is back to take Petry’s minutes.

By the way, players who are dropped in the first waiver are available to picked in the second waiver. So keep your eyes on Kase, Pacioretty, and Hamilton. I was very reluctant to drop Hamilton but when I saw what Brady Tkachuk was doing I had to list him pretty high, and I had no bad players to drop. I assume that because Tkachuk missed so many games and his points were lower that some owners didn’t notice him. Or maybe I’m overrating him because his brother is the best player in the league. In any case I asked myself “Would I trade Hamilton for Tkachuk straight up?” and decided no, I would have to be drunk to do it. So I got drunk and did it.

Hamilton is actually having a great season and he and partner Jacob Slavin have some of the best numbers in the league and are beloved and admired by all. Hamilton is getting tons of shots but I heard he has been snakebitten, plus it seems like he’s not getting any breaks. He’ll probably start scoring more when he recovers from the bite. Bill will no doubt pick him up in the second waiver and add him to his collection of Flames and ex-Flames. He went way off the board to pick Ferland.

Jeff traded for Shattenkirk and then dropped him in the waiver draft. This happens more often than you’d think with such a savvy bunch of owners.

Greg got a couple of good little hockey players but it would have been great if we had gotten to the last guy on his list, Rocky Saganiuk. Remember when Methot showed that guy a thing or two about hitting fly balls? He thought he was good but Phil showed him what a real athlete looks like.

So what was the immediate effect on the standings? We’ll never know, since I didn’t make the changes until today. But here are the standings from this morning both before and after the waiver picks were made.

Standings, December 1, 2018, before waiver picks made:

Standings, December 1, 2018, after waiver picks:

So Greg and I look like we did well, but we had two picks, so it’s hard to judge all you losers.

The second waiver draft isn’t until February but some of you have to make some trades to earn a pick or two. You know who you are. Or more likely you don’t. I’ll let you know. Those of you who have made your mandatory trades should do more anyway just for the fun of it. I’ll analyze the trades in a while and show where you blundered.

So who’s still available to be picked in the second waiver draft? I was going to post the picklist now, but for some reason it still has all the guys we just picked on it , so I’ll send it out later when I get some free time (January).

(New slogan courtesy of Greg.)