Second Waiver Draft Looms Menacingly!

Super Bowl Draft February 11 May Tell the Tale!

February 10, 2024 by Bob.

It’s an unusually close and interesting Hockey Pool this year for some of us, while a few of the bottom-feeders have already given up and moved on to focus on their Scotties Tournament of Hearts Pools. The top of the standings is quite close, so the upcoming waiver draft might be instrumental in determining the winner.

Below, the standings today. The waiver order will be based on the standings tomorrow morning, so today’s games could also be a factor in how things play out. The last column, PT, is the number of players playing today. But most of those are bums on your team.

So how did we get here? Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they get married, and then about a year later, daddy joins a hockey pool so he has yet another excuse to go and drink beer with his friends. Golfing, fantasy sports, The Rotary Club, Doctors without Borders – all blatant excuses to go Bunburying. But as long as we have this thing, let’s see how it’s going.

At the start of the season, Methot’s Moose Nose Soups had a substantial and unsustainable lead. Then they started to go into a death spiral, resulting in the controversial firing of coach H.P. “Sauce” Lovecroft. Meanwhile the Dutch Bitches took the lead for quite a while, but eventually the powerhouse Turkeys (we used to call them “Walking Birds”) caught up and now maintain a narrow lead. Surprisingly, the Mooseheads came surging back in a big way. I can’t think of another case like that where a team was awful, fired the coach, and then were great afterwards. So the Moose are now second, the Ovens third, and Mark’s Solar Bears are lurking nearby, like an eager beaver. I would say that even Bill’s Uzbeks are not out of it yet, so it’s a pity that he has thrown in the towel and refuses to make trades. The top four teams are very close for February.

Interestingly, the Moose and Ovens both have acheived their lofty positions in the standings using the seldom-used strategy of putting all their eggs in one basket. The Dutch Ovens drafted Marner, Matthews, and Nylander with their first three picks. The Moose took Canucks with four of their first six picks and had five in all (Petterson, Miller, Hughes, Kuzmenko (now traded to Calgary), and Garland). Experts scoff at this approach, but it seemed to actually work for a while.

The first Waiver draft back in November was so fascinating that no one even remembers that we did it. But Mark kept records:

First Waiver, Round 1:

Bill dropped Backstrom and picked Dobson

Greg dropped Frost and picked Hronek

Paul dropped Couture and picked Vatrano

Pat dropped Johnson and picked Rust

Mark dropped Wheeler and picked Sanheim

Bob dropped Arvidson and picked Byfield

Ro dropped Kakko and picked Compher

Phil M pick to Greg who dropped Vilardi and picked Perfetti

Round 2:

Bill – Pass

Greg – Pass

Paul dropped Zagras and picked Strome

Pat dropped Hayton and picked Schwartz

Mark dropped Barbashev and picked Bjorkstrand

Bob dropped Burakovsky and picked Coyle

Phil Ro – Pass

Phil M - Pass

So Bill, Greg, Phil R and Phil M have two picks at the February waiver the rest of us have only the one. However, Methot has since traded his second pick in the second waiver to Mark. Unbelievable, I know! An actual trade!

The trade was Evander Kane to Phil in return for Rakell and Methot’s second pick in the upcoming waiver draft. Quite a risky move for Methot, who is almost in the lead and has never previously won a trade. Moreover, he had also traded his first pick in the fall draft to Greg, so he is trying to win this thing with only one waiver pick all year! It seems unsustainable.

The trade made before the first waiver was Moose’s first pick to the Aardvarks, along with Eriksson Ek, for Filip Forsberg. Greg dropped Valardi and picked up Perfetti with the pick. Perfetti has 30 points to Valardi’s 20 (due to games missed due to injury), so Greg is up ten points there. As for the live bodies moved, Ek has 40 points and Forsberg 51, so Phil gained 11. Seems like a fair trade.

The only other trade was also at the first waiver but didn’t involve picks. Bill traded Sam Bennett and his moustache to Bob for Ralph Backstrom. Backstrom may not play again, and Bill dropped him in the waiver as he had been planning to do with Bennett. Bennett hadn’t played all year until then, but is now back and tearing it up to the tune of 23 points, tied for last on the team. So he may get dropped this time. Analysis: Meaningless.

So who is still available to pick up in this waiver draft, and should you trade your pick to me?

Picklist as of February 10, sorted by points:

And sorted by Points Per Game. Note that the Rank number of each player in column 1 is still by their points.

Maybe we can have a chat tonight during Hockey Night in Canada to hash out some trades. It’s Leafs vs. Senators and Oilers vs. Kings. Should be a David Rittich sighting!

Other Random Thoughts:

• Brady Tkachuk is a good player, and funny in that commercial, but I find it hard to take anyone seriously who is a dead ringer for Stewie Griffin’s evil brother Bertrand.
• You have to admire the Amazing Canucks, unless you hate them, which about 80% of Calgarians do. I like them. A young guy I play hockey with is a big fan, and we talked about them last year and couldn’t understand why they were so bad when they seemed to have all the ingredients of a really good team – a star centre, a scoring winger, a top defenseman, and a great goalie. Looks like the missing ingredient was the coach. Remember last year there was talk of trading a bunch of guys like JT Miller and even Demko? That would have been a huge mistake. Nice to see them pick up Lindstrom.
• Canucks have a GREAT third line – Teddy Blueger, Dakota Joshua, and Little Connor Garland. They are absolutely dominant! I always liked Garland, and although he makes a lot of money for a third-liner, he is perfect in that role. A real play-driving forward who creates a lot of chances.
• Do the Bufffalo Sabres really play out of the Tea Bag Center?
• Shout At Clouds of the Week: I watch quite a few highlights of NHL games, so I get to hear all the different broadcast crews. Wow, some of them are bad! A few are just boring or the kind of guys who refuse to acknowledge when the visiting team has scored by even raising their voices, but some just drive me crazy. The worst ones are the fawning homers who call all the home players by their first names or even nicknames. Colorado is bad for this (“It’s Cale, over to the Moose, and Nate Dog scores on the rebound!” (Not an actual quote, but you get the idea.)). The other day the Boston crew kept mispronouncing names of some of the Flames. The NHL has a name pronounciation guide with audio samples, so this is unforgivable. Besides, Weegar has been in the league for years and played in the same division as the Bruins, so how do you get his name wrong? Also the colour guy has a Boston accent. By far the worst crew is Washington’s. Boring, homers, nicknames, the works. They actually call goalie Charlie Lindgren – brace yourselves – “Chucky Sideburns”!
• And the Avalanche play in the Ball Arena?
• There was talk a while ago of making changes to the overtime rules. Three-on-three has gotten a little stale in some ways, but the biggest problem is that it’s too short. I’d like to see ten minutes, and the shootout would almost disappear. Plus teams would have to use a few different skaters. Then just do a sudden death (on even shots) shootout. (Like all right-thinking people, I don’t like the shootout.)
• Should the Oilers’ winning streak have counted as the NHL record (if they had won a couple more games) with a shootout win in there? No. (I don’t like the shootout.)

Chat tonight! Drink beer, make trades!