Summer With the Sens

There hasn't been a whole heck of a lot of change for the Ottawa Senators this summer. They've traded a guy (Alex Auld, to the Stars). They've signed a guy (Alex Kovalev, to a two-year, $10 million contract). They've drafted some guys (including giant Jared Cowen in the first round). But for the most part, the roster remains exactly the same as the one that missed the playoffs last year. Raise your hands if you're excited about that, Sens fans.

I didn't think so.

All this stagnation comes despite the promise of some pretty drastic change for the team this summer which came in the form of a trade request from a certain player -- we'll just call him Dany Doucheley. A lack of interest in this player (I don't know why; possibly because of his assfacedness, but that's just a guess) has put the Sens' organization and the team's fans in a holding pattern all month.

With the lack of movement from the real Sens, I'm passing my time with the fake Sens: I am the team's General Manager in the big NHL Re-Draft going on at Cycle Like the Sedins.

In case you don't know, the concept of the NHL Re-Draft is this: we are, as the name suggests, re-drafting the league one player at a time, with the ultimate goal of building a new roster for our teams that works within the NHL's current salary cap. The new teams will then face off in an NHL 10 simulation. The idea came out of a post by James of Cycle Like the Sedins, who asked: if you could build your team around one player, who would you pick? From there, the re-draft developed into a full on 30-team fantasy draft, with each team represented by one fan/blogger GM. I was reading some of the blog posts about this and I noticed that no one had stepped up to claim the Sens, so I volunteered.

And now here I am. CLTS held a draft lottery to determine the order of picks, and the Sens ended up with pick #24 (the order will snake in round two, putting me at #7). On Monday, I used my first pick to take Rick Nash. I see him as exactly the type of player I'd like to build my team around and his cap hit is a very reasonable $5.4 million (his new deal kicks in for the 2010-2011 season), which I hope will give me plenty of room to build around him.

I think my next priority will be to get a solid goaltender, if I can. As a Sens fan, I am far too familiar with the stress, pain, and losing that comes with having a weak spot between the pipes. I'm also hoping to build a more balanced offence than the real Sens have, and ideally a more mobile defence too. The problem, of course, is how I'm going to brainwash the 29 other GMs into giving me the players I want. :)

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The Mono Award

After my fantasy hockey draft this fall, which I stupidly let go to auto-draft, I ended up with a surplus of goalies and no right wings. Definitely a problem.

The commish messaged me the next day. "I'll take one of those goalies off your hands if you want. Name your price."

I offered him Phoenix goalie Ilya Bryzgalov for Phil Kessel, my favorite current NHL player. Odd choice for a favorite player at the time, sure, but I had my reasons. See, the first goal I had ever seen in college hockey game (which as most of you all know is my first love) included an assist by him, and because of that, I've stuck by him since. (And for those of you wondering, that game was January 8, 2005 - USA Under-18 Team versus Boston University.)

The commish was a little shocked. "Okay. You sure you want Kessel?"

"Of course." I messaged back.

Of course, at the time, I figured that Kessel would be on my fantasy hockey roster for no real hockey value, just because he's my favorite player. I do this with every fantasy sports team I have - I always pick up Gabe Kapler for my fantasy baseball team, and I picked up my Tampa Bay Bucs practice squad member cousin on my fantasy football team one season. Usually these moves make no sense, and I usually drop them when I need to add another player. But this time, my throwaway silly pick ended up being a great deal.

My move for Kessel and my later pickup of Blue Jackets goalie and Calder Award shoo-in Steve Mason off the waiver wire put me near the top of my fantasy league for most of the season. I looked like a genius for trading for Kessel prior to the start of the season, if I do say so myself.

Then came word that Kessel had mono. Not only did I feel bad for him, but I felt bad for my fantasy team. I was getting tons of points from him. And in my giant league, available scoring forwards were few and far between, and no one was willing to trade, so I lost his production and lost a big fantasy matchup. I placed Kessel on the DL, and watched the blogs for any indication of his return.

But then, the inplausable happened. I went to set my fantasy lineup before making dinner one evening, and saw the little red note next to Mason's name. Expecting it to be another, "Mason shut out fill-in-the-blank team again tonight. If you have him on your roster, you look like a freakin' genius," note from the ESPN.com fantasy gurus, I clicked on it.

And instead of another boost to my fantasy self-esteem, the note told me Mason too had mono.

If I was a swearing woman, I would have sworn at that point. I would have sworn many times. There would have been more curse words than The Boondock Saints.

I had lost one of my leading scorers and my leading goalie to the same annoying disease. What were the odds?

I've weathered the storm - both are back, although Kessel's production hasn't been the same. But due to having had two players suffer from the same disease in such a short period of time has earned me a new award from my league's commish: The Mono Award.

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HLOG Throwdown: Week 3

It's the middle of Week 3 in HLOG Fantasy (hockey) Land and as league Commish I'm rocking last place all on my own. Dead Last. As in, not where the Kings are in the standings! Yay! The saddest part about my being last is that I'm actually trying. In fact, Heather B hasn't touched her team since September 9th and she's still beating me. Tracy and Elly are also neglecting their teams but are somehow still beating me. Unreal. But Elly is only 3 points ahead of me so if she continues to treat her team like a red-headed stepchild, I'll be movin' on up.

With 16 teams, any injury or poor performance results in a tough decision of who to pick up. The top teams are doing well for themselves, hardly needing to juggle things up. But the bottom feeders, like myself, need to quickly figure out who to drop and find the gems in a very sparse free agency pool in order to start winning.


There are four teams battling for top honors: Use and Amuse (Sherry), Sauer Power (Mo), openicehits (Leanne), and EI's Belles (Ellie). Last week Sherry bitch-slapped her opponent (Elly) 10-1, handily defeating her in goals and PIM (thanks to Rivet's 29 PIM in one week, who knew he had it in him). Leanne swept me in the goalie categories after both Biron and Turco had a horrendous week.

Sherry and Steph lead the league in goals with Bethany and Leanne not too far behind. Sherry is lucky to have snagged Marc Savard (5G, 4A) and Todd Bertuzzi (5G, 10 PIM). Wait, lucky to have Bertuzzi? Isn't that supposed to by an oxymoron? And how is it that Trianglehead doesn't even have one goal? At least he has 5 assists, bringing his points total to 5, which is more than Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Teemu Selanne combined. Kirsten and CapsChick continue to lack goal scorers but are both tops in assists. What is most fascinating is that we're only in Week 3 and CapsChick is at an astonishing +44. As of Wednesday morning, she doesn't have a single player in the negative. Unbelievable. I guess her game plan of drafting (almost) only Canadiens and Capitals is working out. Mo's team is leading the league in PIM with 87 (largely attributed to her two Shanes, Doan and O'Brien, and Kurt Sauer) and my team is behind by only 11 PIM, which tells me that somebody isn't doing his job (tsk, tsk). After earning 27 PIM in the first week of Fantasy Hockey, Avery failed to commit even one penalty last week. While AcidQueen, Sherry, and Connie lead the league in power play points in the low 20s, CapsChick and I are lagging far behind, having yet to even reach double digits. The top four goaltenders are Brodeur (Mo), Backstrom (Leanne), Miller (Teka), and Lundqvist (Ellie) which may explain how Mo, Leanne, and Ellie are placed in the top four of the fantasy league.

With many more weeks to go, it's still any lass's game. Heather B, Tracy, and Elly, get your teams in order! We can't let Sherry and Leanne lead the league again!

p.s. Tracy, I still have your prize from last season. I SWEAR that I will make it to the post office one of these days!

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'08-'09 Fantasy Hockey Teams

In no particular order, here's a brief look at the 16 teams participating in this year's HLOG Fantasy Hockey League. Place your bets in the comments on who you think will win the most coveted prize in Fantasy Hockey history.

(note: Tracy, I have your prize sitting on my desk and I promise that one day I will mail it to you)

NPI Conkuerors
Steph has decided to start the season with only 3 Defensemen (M. Green, Kubina, and B. Stuart). I tried that strategy one season and it didn't work out as well as I had hoped. There's a good chance that Steph's defense will not provide her enough points every week. There might not be anyone in free agency worth selecting, so a trade may be her best move.

3 Mile Isle Meltdown
Poor Teka thought the Draft was set for an hour later and ended up with an Auto-Drafted team. I think her team is decent but she is NOT thrilled with having Marian Hossa and is determined to rid her team of his stench. She also got stuck with Derek Armstrong (I took her favorite Armstrong), Darcy Mother Tucker (appropriately named by CapsChick!), and Bryan McCabe (that received a few chuckles).

Bethany's Bitches
Bethany has a lot of faith in Columbus' goalies as evidenced by her selections of Norrena and Leclaire for her Fantasy team. I think she has a case of the "over confidences" but wait till you see my team. She also managed to pick up three additional BJs (tee hee hee), Rick Nash, RJ Umberger, and Jakub Voracek. Wait, no Filatov?? If Columbus makes the playoffs this year, so will Bethany. However, Bethany should put some thought into making a trade for a LW because she only has two and will probably want one more when neither Nash nor Patrick Sharp are playing on a given night.

Update: Bethany wisely decided to drop Norrena. However, now she's rolling with only one goalie, which could present many problems, most notably securing the three game minimum/week requirement for goalies.

El's Belles
Ellie has a pretty decent team with a solid goalie tandem consisting of Lundqvist and Price. Eric Staal is her prized possession and if Cammalleri has a good transition in Calgary, Cheechoo regains his scoring touch from two seasons ago, and H. Sedin puts up big numbers like he should, Ellie could be a front runner.

Blake-tastic
Connie has a fantastic one-two punch at Center with Joe Thornton and Anze Kopitar. Despite her unwavering hatred for San Jose, she set aside her feelings to conduct business by drafting Thornton, Joe Pavelski (hmmm, she must have a thing for guys named Joe) and, of course, Rob Blake. She also drafted her new fave King, Dustin Brown, and with a solid offensive defensive corps, Connie will definitely be in the top half of the league in offense. However, will Cam Ward and Pretty Ricky be good enough to consistently win the goalie categories? I think not.

Dirty Birds
Elly has a strong affinity for Centers as she picked 5 of them. Yeah, 5! She was lucky enough to snag Vincent LeCavalier but, it'll be interesting to see if Jordan Staal can improve upon last year's outing and whether or not Patrice Bergeron can put up more than 7 points. Her defense is very defensively minded, not the best group for Fantasy Hockey, and Manny Fernandez is her #2 goalie...ouch. Elly, you may want to tweak your defense if you want to advance to the playoffs.

FiveAndDime
Heather B. has a very young team with loads of potential. Accompanying Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek are Jonathan Toews, Bobby Ryan, Kyle Turris, and Steven Stamkos. Surprisingly, Stamkos was picked very late; apparently not many ladies are expecting him to be close to the second coming of Ovechkin. She also got stuck with Pronger, but may have the last laugh if he can put up another 31 assists and 128 PIM. Despite backstopping Florida's squad, Tomas Vokoun had 30 wins last year and if he has another season like that he'll be the perfect complement to Evgeni Nabokov.

Red Square Raiders
CapsChick picked first and was awarded Alexander Ovechkin. Throughout the draft she proceeded to select (almost) only players from the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens: Koivu, Ovechkin, Semin, Markov, Poti, Komisarek, A. Kostitsyn, Higgins, Federov, Alzner, and Theodore. She should drop the other 6 players and pick up Caps and Habs to become the Monwash Capidiens.

TheHolyGuacamoles
Tracy was also on AutoDraft but I really like her team. She has Malkin, Getzlaf, Blake, Prospal, and Gaborik up top. Derek Morris is her weakest defenseman with only 25 points from last season. Her goaltending is suspect with Martin Gerber at #1 and Jonathan Bernier at #2. It still isn't certain whether Bernier will be with the Kings this season so she should be ready to drop him once the Kings roster is announced.

charlestownchiefs
Kirsten was on Auto-Draft the majority of the time (perhaps for the entire Draft) and came away with a team I can only describe as 'meh'. Crosby, Olli Jokinen, and Brad Richards are offset by Sami Salo, Simon Gagne, Kevin Bieksa, and the European-bound Martin Straka. Her goaltending is shaky with Mike Smith (and the nonexistent Tampa Bay defense) backing up Manny Legace.

Great Gig in the Sky
AcidQueen was also on Auto-Draft but came away with a pretty solid team. You really can't complain with Mike Richards, Derek Roy, Dany Heatley, Patrik Elias, Jason Pomminville, JP Dumont, Niklas Hagman, and Andy McDonald. Her defensemen are great set-up men and even Chris Neil will make up for his low points with PIM. With Roberto Luongo and Mathieu Garon in net, AcidQueen probably has the best all-around team.

Update: Erik Johnson is expected to miss the ENTIRE season! AcidQueen, drop him....drop him like it's hot.

It Only Game
Cat, that lucky devil, is blessed with the amazingness of Nicklas Lidstrom but that's about it for her defense, which includes Matt Niskanen, Ron Hainsey, Mathieu Carle, and Ryan Suter; all decent players that are just not suitable for Fantasy Hockey. Brendan Morrow and Zach Parise will be leading her offense, but hopefully Joe Sakic can stay healthy and motivated to pot more than 13 goals. With the crazy Russian (Ilya Bryzgalov) and Peter Budaj in net, I think it's safe to say that Cat will be stuck trying to crack the top 8.

Sauer Power
Mo has a very strong offensive corps but a weaker defense than Cat's team. It's amazing that Mo was able auto-draft Le Petit Briere, Marleau, Vanek, Alfredsson, Nikolai Zherdev, Shane Doan, and Shanahan (I'm assuming he'll eventually sign somewhere). Her team didn't have a strong outing in +/- last season but Jared Boll and Shane O'Brien will most likely secure her a win in PIM every week.

openicehits
Leanne has a full roster of second tier scorers that could consistently hand her the W every week. She also fittingly drafted the offensive defenseman powerhouse, Dion Phaneuf. Leanne smartly drafted three goalies to provide her a security blanket in case one goalie decides to have a mental breakdown this season.

Use and Amuse
Sherry opted to nap on her couch rather than participate in the Draft...I suppose she can still play. The Hockey Gods punished her by auto-drafting Mats Sundin and Alexander Radulov. However, maybe if Sherry commits an act to the Hockey Gods' liking, they'll allow Radulov to play in the NHL and convince Mats to quickly sign with a team before the start of the season. Sherry will absolutely clean up in the assists category but goals is an entirely different story. Sherry's defense won't be providing her many goals this season so she'll have to rely upon the sniper skills of Datsyuk, Daniel Sedin, Naslund, and Erat. If Toronto and Boston are winning teams this year, then she'll also receive decent goaltending stats from Vesa Toskala and Tim Thomas...but you never know with those franchises.

Vote 4 Lubo
I probably have the weakest defense with Boyle, Zidlicky, Jack Johnson, and Drew Doughty. I'm counting on Boyle becoming more of a points gatherer with San Jose and Jack to be more offensively minded this season. I'm only going to give Doughty through October to prove that he deserves to be on my fantasy team. I probably should have drafted someone else but I let my emotions get in the way. (Damn you feelings!) My forwards are all capable of putting up big numbers so I'm relying heavily upon them (Ribeiro, Drury, Frolov, Avery, St. Louis, Lupul, Modano) to carry the team. I called for Avery in the middle of the draft and surprisingly, everyone let me have him...I heart Avery! Like Leanne, I also drafted three goaltenders to be safe: Turco, Biron, and LaBarbera.

Since the Draft there have already been two trades proposed. In the first trade, Steph is sending Sam Gagner to Kirsten for Brent Seabrook. Steph will recieve a fourth defenseman (a must) and Kirsten receives a talented center who will probably be even better than last year.

The second trade will see Teka sending Ilya Kovalchuk to Mo for Thomas Vanek. I don't really know why Teka is sending away a player who notched 87 points last season, but I can only guess it's for personal reasons.

There you have it, ladies and gents, the '08-'09 HLOG Fantasy League. Hopefully throughout the season we'll provide you udates on how dramatically the teams have changed and which teams are the bottom feeders and which are the dominators. Are you ready for a Throwdown?

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HLOG Throwdown aka HLOG Fantasy Hockey '08-'09

16 Girls.

16 Teams.

One NHL.

It's a good thing all of us don't live in the same city (or have even met) or else there would have been some serious hair pulling and cat clawing.


The HLOG Fantasy League was increased from 12 teams last season to 16 teams this season. Spots were filled in less than a day and the Draft was intense. Here's a quick review of the Draft highlighting the best moments.

Elly created her team just hours before the 3pm deadline and the live draft went off without a hitch. CapsChick (Red Square Raiders) was given the first pick and Ovie was ranked 1st; those two are a match made in heaven. Damn her and her awesomeness! Steph (NPI Conkuerors) was handed the second pick yet could not bring herself to pick the 2nd ranked player: Sidney Crosby. Un-f'ing-believable. I still don't understand the Crosby-Hater-Nation.

NPI Conkuerors: ARGH I CAN'T DO IT
Vote 4 Lubo (kms2): no cindy??
Red Square Raiders: I love Steph's moral dilemma
Red Square Raiders: Steph, pick him and try and trade him

Although, you can't really blame Steph since we all have standards. I refused to pick any Ducks players, especially Mr. Elbows and I couldn't even bring myself to select former Ducks, Paul Kariya and Andy McDonald. About half the managers were present for the live draft which probably helped speed things along. With those not present on Auto-Draft and the present teams doing their best on picking quickly, players were flying off the list and everyone had to keep up with the Draft Chat. Sometimes things were a bit too crazy and every now and then someone would get lost:

Bethany's Bitches (Bethany): I don't even know what is happening right now

Since no money is involved in this league we felt obliged to let each other know which players to avoid but every now and then a mishap would occur when a manager was unaware of an injury (Whitney). And sometimes players were picked on autodraft that unfortunately might be liabilities (Zubov) and other times managers made questionable selections.

Use and Amuse (Sherry) has selected (auto-draft) Mats Sundin
NPI Conkuerors has selected Andrew Brunette
Blake-tastic (Connie): mats??
Blake-tastic: really?
Red Square Raiders: BRUNETTE? REALLY?

The Yahoo! rankings seemed questionable for certain players (McCabe) and it was surprising to see some players still listed when it's a well known fact that they're not even going to play in the NHL this year.

Red Square Raiders: Hey, Steph? Alzner...is ranked about 400 places above Jurcina and he's never played a game.

Vote 4 Lubo: hahha, Nagy is still listed

Bethany criticized someone for selecting Brendan Shanahan because he doesn't have a contract. Then I had to remind her that she drafted Patrick O'Sullivan, who doesn't have a contract either. Towards the end of the Draft, we sat around chit-chatting:

Bethany's Bitches: I'm going to Buffaloooooooooooooo
Red Square Raiders: ...on purpose?

Good thing Heather B wasn't there.

And with pre-season games currently happening, surprise, surprise, we hockey fanatics will be in attendance, some of us lucky enough to secure press passes.
Bethany's Bitches: I may go to one on the weekend and use my press pass
Bethany's Bitches: I want to meet angel face! (ed note: I think she's referring to the ultra-feminine Filatov)
Red Square Raiders: OH guys I got a full season press pass! I'm very excited, just thought I'd share. (ed note: we are all jealous...)

Fantasy Hockey is a great place to catch up on hockey news since so many of us focus too heavily on our own teams.
The Holy Guacamoles (Tracy) has selected Mark Recchi
Bethany's Bitches: mark recchi
Red Square Raiders: Is he still alive?
Red Square Raiders: I mean playing?
Bethany's Bitches: that's what i thought (ed note: me too!)

Kirsten finally showed up at the end of the Draft and was thoroughly upset when she found out that Auto-Draft and Steph gave her Crosby.
charlestownchiefs (Kirsten): why did you get me Crosby, autodraft
NPI Conkuerors: it's my fault
NPI Conkuerors: I refused to take him because I wanted Henrik

Seriously, people, why the hate for Crosby?! He'll be good for your team! Kirsten, let's make a trade. Who do you want for Crosby?

After CapsChick hounded Steph during the entire Draft to select "F*ckhead" (aka, Tom Fleischmann...yeah, who?), she finally did:
NPI Conkuerors: maybe by picking fuckhead i've just set him up to have like the best year ever!

So who's favored to win this season? Up next, previews of each team.

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More Ways to Waste Time

Even if you're out of the playoffs, you're never really OUT of the playoffs!

I just started League Hlog Playoffs '08 over at the free NHL playoff fantasy zone. Since I lost miserably with my normal Yahoo fantasy team, anyone want to come see if we're any better in the post-season?


(hint, password is everyone's favorite Cutting Edge saying.)

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Fantasy Hockey Update Week Seven...this is starting to get ugly!

Okay ladies, another shortened version this week, as I worked 60+ hours last week and I am on my way to work yet another crazy shift. I promise these will get back to the long version after the holidays.

First, the big news: Elly is back!! That's right, no more rogue team for us to beat up on and rack up goaltending stats! In her debut, she kicked Steph's ass, 8-2, with poor Steph only taking goals and wins. Oh well. Good luck to Leanne, who plays Murphys this week!

In other crushing blows, Kirsten finally dropped Toskala. The next night, he went and got a shutout. Damn you Vesa!!! Teka beat Kirsten 7-3 this week, thanks in part to Vinny's 4 goal week and Jussi's 4 goals (who?). Hey Teka, wanna trade Vinny for pretty Ricky? Please?

kms2 was back to her dominating ways. She beat Sherry 7-2. When I say dominated, I mean it...there wasn't really a category that was even close! I think it was because Sherry dropped Langkow like a hot potato when she heard about his concussion. I tried to pick him up, but capschick had a higher waiver priority!

capschick had a good week, beating jordi even without having Langkow on the roster for the full week. It was a pretty close matchup, and most categories were up for grabs here.

Bethany beat the snot out of Tracy this week. (I thought they were supposed to be friends!!!) Bethany's 7-2 drubbing of Tracy was helped by her total dominance in the goaltending stats, including 5 wins for the week (she only has 2 goaltenders folks...) and a minuscule 1.52 GAA. Yikes!

And lastly, leanne kicked my ass. The first part of the week was particularly bad...it was 8-0 though Wednesday. My previously stellar goaltending (Leclaire and Thomas) finally came back to earth and totally screwed me for the week. In the end, I was able to tie her in enough categories to not be embarrassed, and she ended up beating me 5-4. Phew!

That's all for now...

Matchup to watch this week: Kirsten vs capschick

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Gaborik apologizes to you. Yeah you.

Gaborik issues public apology

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Sportsnet.ca -- In an unprecedented move, Minnesota Wild forward Marian Gaborik has apologized to fantasy hockey owners for playing in a defensive system.

"When developing this team it is obvious that management paid no attention to fantasy owners, but instead selfishly decided that winning games was more important," Gaborik said in a "prepared statement."

The Slovak scorer has 13 points in 12 games this season, including a game-winning goal against the Calgary Flames. For his efforts the Wild are off to a 9-6-2 start, but fantasy owners are frustrated that Gaborik is not a Top 5 in every offensive category.

"I will continue to help you out when I can," Gaborik explained. "But I am afraid management is obsessed with giving Minnesota fans a Stanley Cup."

Gaborik will continue to do his best in Edmonton on Thursday night as the Wild visit the Oilers.

I suddenly have this renewed respect and liking towards Gaborik. Heh.

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Fantasy Hockey Update Week Six: The short version

Ladies, I apologize for my tardiness and the shortness of this post. I am on the way out the door to meet up with Nadine for tonight's game. I will post the long version after I get back. In the meantime, feel free to complain about last week's dismal results in the comments!

The short version:

Tracy has the upset of the season so far, SWEEPING kms2 7-0

I beat Murphys (thank god) on the minimum games rule.

Over all, the top four teams from last week stayed in the top four, we just all switched positions. Pretty much the same for the bottom four.

Matchup to watch this week: The Love Match...CBJ Love vs. Coyote Love. Can Tracy upset another top team?

More after the game...

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Fantasy Hockey Update Week Five: All bow down to kms2....

Well last week's matchup to watch was a close one, but kms2 continues to roll. She took all the goaltending stats and killed Kirsten in assists, and poor Kirsten just hung on to pick up the scraps in the other categories. Vesa is really dragging Kirsten down, yet she keeps him on the roster...and plays him!! Hey Kirsten, I'll give you Miller for Hemsky...cmon...you know you want him!

Leanne's new additions are already paying off, as Mike Richards and Patrick Kane added 3 goals and 2 assists between them to help her take those categories. Tracy took the goaltending stats as Brodeur started to get back on track this week.

Having that Crosby kid is finally starting to pay off for Bethany...she beat Jordi in G,A and PPP thanks to Crosby and Gaborik. Jordi also lost in goaltending since Biron had a rough week. She somehow managed to squeak two wins out of Khabibulin, in spite of his horrible GAA and SV%. Hey Jordi, do you want Miller?

capschick's team took offense (no pun intended) at me saying they only scored 3 goals last week...so they went out and scored 5 goals this week! If it weren't forOvie she would have only had 2 goals this week! (erm, uh, I can't really throw stones here, I only had 3 goals this week...) capschick beat teka 7-1, as teka fell victim to the "minimum games played" goaltending rule. At least teka won in PIM!!!

Sherry was able to come up with a decisive 9-2 win over our rogue team, although I am sure it has to be frustrating to lose to murphys in any category. However, elly's team does have kovalchuk and heatley, who scored 3421 goals this week...it's hard to compete against that!

Oh, remember last week when I said kms2, sherry, and Kirsten were my predictions for taking whole enchilada? I forgot to mention Steph in that group, and her team made me pay for it this week. At one point, she lead 10-0 and I was just praying that nobody on her team got aSHP so I could avoid being completely swept. Luckily, my goaltending came through on the last day and I was able to tie her up in W and SHO. I would also like to report my earth shattering -17...for this week. (I guess that is what happens when you have 42 Sabres on your team and the Sabres start sucking...)

Overall, it was a great week with a lot of teams headed in the right direction.

Matchup to watch this week: leanne vs. sherry. These two teams are really starting to roll, and it should be a close one.

Note: kms2 has proposed a change to the max number of moves (drops, adds, trades). She would like to change it from 20 to unlimited. Let her know how you feel about this either in the comments or on the league message board...

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Fantasy Hockey Update Week Three...Winning on a technicality...

So Sherry totally kicked my ass this week. She has a fantastic team, including Langkow, Spezza, Whitney and Cammalleri. She leads the league in assists and is tied for second with kms2 for goals. If I had to guess, I would say she or kms2 win the whole enchilada.

At one point early in the week, I was down 8-1. I gained a little momentum when my goalies started to play, and it looked like I was going to finish the week 5-4. (Brind'Amour's hat trick pushed me ahead in the goals category.) (That despite the fact that Pretty Ricky totally effed my SV% and GAA!!!!!!)

But then a strange thing happened...I ended up winning 8-2. Sitting in front of my computer at 3 am and waiting for the stats to update, I was shocked to see my amazing come from behind victory, even though none of my guys played on Sunday. When I dug a little deeper though, I was more shocked. My crappy SV% and GAA beat hers! WTF?

And then I remembered the minimum game rule: combined, your goalies must play at least 3 games during the week. Hers only played two games! Sweeeeeeet!! Victory is mine!!!

Other than my exciting victory, here is the lowdown:

kms2 continues to dominate: she beat the snot out of Jordi, and 4 of her players had game winning goals...this week! She has a league high 8 GWG. Damn!

Kirsten crushed Leanne, and now that I think of it, is definitely one of the other teams that could take the whole enchilada. She has a league high +/- of 27, and nobody else is even close! Don't worry though Leanne, once Gagne comes back you'll be fine. Plus you picked up a lot of great players this weekend, including Patrick Kane...who knew he was still a free agent?

I am happy to report that Tracy swept Murphys, which is a good thing, since I think this is elly's team and she hasn't even logged in since before the draft.

Teka and Steph had a good battle, although at one point Teka was up 9-0. It's a good thing Vinny had 21 PIM, or Steph would have beat the self proclaimed PIM queen in that category. (psst, teka, you are actually 5th in PIM right now.)

And then there is Bethany and capschick. Both teams had an underwhelming week, with a combined 9 goals and a - 9 for the week. With stats like that, it's a wonder either of them won any category at all...but they ended the week nicely 4-3 in Bethany's favor.

Matchup to watch this week: kms2 vs. kirsten. It's gonna be a tough one! Make sure your goalies get their minimum games in!!!

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Fantasy Update Week Three...How many centers can one team carry?

Another great week in the NON-suck league.

kms2 continues to dominate, like really dominate. she only lost in one freaking category this week (+/-) and she only lost that by three lousy points. damn girl, I think you may have done this before.

Bethany had a good week, bolstered mostly by Guerin's hat trick. Sure, she had a few assists from Sid, but overall that guy is bringing her down.

Jordi and her man Marty continue to roll in the shutouts and wins, and thanks to Marty, her week didn't totally suck.

Steph continues to be quietly consistent, not flashy with any 8-1 wins, but holding firmly in second place. Steph is head to head with Teka this week, so any hope of winning PIM is gone. Teka is owning that category. Too bad it is the only category she owns...well that and she is currently owning the basement. (Teka, you are behind Murphys..they haven't even logged in since August 29th....)

PIM is one category I can't win, and can barely get a freaking point in. I had 22 PIM this week, and I think that is more than my total PIM so far. I added 75 new centers to my lineup, just to make things interesting. My opponent this week is Sherry, and I fully expect to lose since her team is 95 percent Sens and Wild. I don't stand a chance.

Tracy was having a rough week, where at some point she was down 9-1, but she managed to win 3 categories after a great Saturday. Stupid Saturday games, they get me every time.

That's all for now...off to catch the boys at practice!

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Fantasy Hockey Update: Week Two and already I am a junkie!!

Wow, what a week. I was head to head with Kirsten (damn, it is hard to type Kirsten when your name is Kristin) and we had a great week of trash talking.

My team started off strong with about a thousand assists from Brian Campbell, and aided by the total drubbing of Vesa Toskala. At one point, I was killing her 8-1, but she had a strong finish on Sunday while Beauchemin and Preissing killed me with their combined minus 8000 for Sunday.

I would really like to thank Vesa for such a crappy week (game, actually)...Kirsten's team actually had two shutouts this week, and my lame ass goalies still came up with a better GAA and SV% thanks to Vesa.

Now, a confession. Yahoo updates their stats every night at 2:30 am EST. I know this because I wait up to see if I kicked any ass. This is gonna be a problem.

Up next....Tracy. Get yer trash talk ready!

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