EHM The Blue Line

I won't be able to be at the draft either. I have set my info somewhat. But considering last year I was only around for 2 picks, and did as well as I did through making Free Agent moves and trades not concerned. Good luck to those who are there. Hopefully I will not auto draft 5 rookies going to the minors or back to juniors like last season.

That's right, draft is today at 3:00 PM EST! Only about three hours to go! Our draft room will open one hour before the draft, so everyone can go in and chat and get familiar with the draft app.

Anyone who won't make the start, but could be back during the draft, feel free to check-in late. I'm pretty sure ESPN lets us do that; just sign-in, and I think there will be a big alert saying that your draft is underway, with an option to enter the draft. Click that and you should be taken to the draft.

Or the other way around: if you'll make the start, but won't be able to finish, you can leave at any time. I think there's an option to set your team to autopick, or if you forget, the app will switch to auto once you miss a pick.

I've set my auto pick ranks and strategy, I will see if I will be able to be around during the draft, I hope for the first pick. But it's saturday night at 9 pm so it might happen that me and a friend of mine will go to a nightclub or something.

Great draft guys. Nice and quick and I think I fared pretty well.

If I was icing an NHL lineup with this group here are my lines:

Heatley - Malkin - Gaborik ( )
Vanek - Franzen - Gionta
Vermette - Bergeron - Latendresse
Umberger - Ennis - Niederreiter

Doughty - Kaberle
Burns - Hedman
Johnson - Regehr

Ward - Rask

Bench players are Giguere, Stafford and Tangradi

Looking forward to the season opener on Friday!

For all MHL fans, the 2010 Draft recap can be found Here


I feel pretty good about my team, too. I hope Gagne (Round 11, Pick 143) and Lecavalier (Round 8, Pick 110) really pay-off. They came pretty easily, too: both of them just kind of popped-up on me.

Tyler Seguin was another surprisingly easy pick (Round 18, Pick 256). I was torn between him or Umberger, with Umberger being the "safe" pick. But then you took him as I was dragging him to my queue, so Seguin it was.

I guess we also learned that letting a team go without keepers doesn't really do anything - you'll just have to pick them at the start of the draft.

LA Bald Uakaris 2010-11

A.Ovechkin - J.Toews - C.Stewart
A.Steen - D.Roy - J.Langenbrunner
F.Brunnstrom - T.J.Oshie - E.Fehr
D.Carcillo - E.Kane - T.Brouwer

S.Weber - C.Ehrhoff
A.Greene - D.Seidenberg
Z.Bogosian - F.Tyutin

M.Kiprusoff
C.Anderson

On the bench there are GK J.Bernier, D A.Babchuk and C Jarrett Stoll.

I'm pretty happy with my team too, right wing isn't that good scoring-wise, but all in all I feel this team can really make it. I concentrated on youth with our late round pics and there is some young talent in the team this time.

I'm really looking forward to the season to start!

Zetterberg - H.Sedin - Samuelsson
Smyth - Richards - Knuble
Kunitz - Connolly - Vrbata
Booth - Mueller - Zherdev

Markov - Whitney
Stralman - Bieksa
Coburn - Fowler

Turco
Nittymaki

I got a decent tema. Wish i was home when draft started. But well see where ti takes me

Cammalleri-Crosby-Perry
Sharp-Laich-St. Louis
Hall-Dubinsky-Brown
Clowe-Regin-Versteeg
Hudler

McCabe-Subban
Kubina-Yandle
Byfuglien-Zidlicky
Gunnarsson

Halak
Quick
DiPietro

C is very weak beyond Crosby, RW is stupidly strong and goaltending is boom or bust in my eyes.

My first priority was to shore up LW since I wasn't very happy with Cammalleri as my keeper in the first place but I couldn't pass on St. Louis when he was available for my first pick. Second pick was Sharp who I like for his shot totals and dual positions.

My next two picks were Kubina and Quick and all of a sudden all the good centers were gone. 24 centers + 14 keepers had acctually been picked already and this was only round 11, seems everyone else had the opposite strategy going in. I picked up Laich who should be solid in the +/- departement if nothing else, he also has dual positions and a spot in the high powered top six of Washington if someone gets injured or neither of the rookie centers pan out.

Then I picked up what I'm hoping will be my future at LW, Taylor Hall. Worth noting is that Pääjärvi was acctually picked before him, as was Eberle. They might both be more NHL-ready but I'm hoping Hall has the bigger upside and adjusts quickly.

With all the good centers gone I decided to just ignore the position for now and pick up strong players elsewhere to hopefully work a trade sometime during the season. Dustin Brown was still around and should be a good multi-category player so he was my next pick despite having two very strong RWs already.

Next was Keith Yandle who I saw in a few games last season and was impressed, it obviously doesn't hurt that he turned out nicely on the scoresheet either. Between him and Subban I'm hoping my future at D is solid. I also had my eyes on Ekman-Larsson, Karlsson, McBain and Carlson before the draft but I didn't manage to get any of them. I'm still happy though, Yandle is proven and solid in all categories. Lots of young D with possibly great futures ahead of them available this year.

Next I finished up LW with the first of what I hope will be my late round steals in Ryan Clowe, he had 57 points and 131 PIM last year. ESPN has him dropping to 47 points and 93 PIM in 69 games this year, I'm hoping they are wrong.

Looking for another D I find Marek Zidlicky who has had very steady production for a few years. Good points and good PIM, the only worry is the +/-.

I decide I need to get atleast three centers before people start picking them for their benches so I take Dubinsky. He should have solid PIMs and I guess he is still a minor candidate for the Gaborik-lottery. If he doesn't end up centering Gaborik maybe a move to wing will do him good (and hopefully add LW as a position for him).

Finishing up my D is Dustin Byfuglien, I'm hoping/assuming that he'll still be a forward on the PP and pick up some good shots and PPP numbers.

Now I'm noticing that the reasonable G options are dropping like flies and I have two starters who are both in risk of being unseated from the position so what do I do? Why I go for a third huge questionmark obviously and pick DiPietro for the bench. Seriously though if he stays healthy (highly unlikely) this could be another steal and if not... Well there's always the IR spot.

I'm still missing a RW but I have a few queued up that I really like so I decide to finish up the really weak C position first and go for Peter Regin. Will he play on Spezzas wing this season? I'm sure hoping that he will.

And then I pick Versteeg and Hudler, how are these guys still available? Versteeg should see lots of ice in Toronto, improving on his 20 goals 44 points season last year. Hudler has 70 point upside this year and hey, I had to have atleast one Red Wing on my team.

Hamrlik is sadly picked up before it gets to me for the last pick, I was hoping I could snag him for shot blocking. Drawing a blank I end up picking Gunnarsson, he's a strong candiate to be my first drop.

I'm pretty pleased with my team, I hope it turns out good.

Perron-Getzlaf-Alfredsson
Tanguay-Carter-Hemsky
Kostitsyn-Antropov-Cole
Ladd-Weiss-Guerin

Bouwmeester-E. Johnson
Souray-Robidas
Beauchemin-Sbisa

Lundqvist
Leclaire

Bench:
Filppula
Lupul
Roloson

The only thing I'm worried about is my LW. The rest of the team seems good.

The draft was percet fun! Now I realised that I drafted Micheal Leighton who's on long term IR. Fortunatelly it was in late rounds. But I still consider dropping him...
Overall, I'm happy with Semin.

B.Stinson: both Gagne and Lecavalier come from my team. I kept Briere and Benn instead of them. I hope I won't regret that.

McQwak wrote:B.Stinson: both Gagne and Lecavalier come from my team. I kept Briere and Benn instead of them. I hope I won't regret that.

I hope you do.

I'm interested to see if and how they play together in Tampa. I would assume they could be great together, but who knows... maybe they won't.

Corinthian Red Army

Louis Eriksson - Backstrom - Hossa
Paajarvi - Zajac - Doan
Michalek - Pavelski - Clarkson
Malone - Lombardi - Boyes

Green - Martin
Kronwall - Edler
White - Tallinder

Miller
Niemi
Mason

Bench : Ruutu -Berglund

I think I've a good team. Maybe I need another D-men.

Ouch! Somebody got Savard with their first pick after the keepers. That's rough. They don't know when he's coming back. I see '*" next to a bunch of injured players who are expected to be on the LTIR but I guess the autorankings ignored that and went purely off of last season's stats. That's a shame.

Ewww...I do not like autodraft. Starting from handicap again, at least though I have decent G. But 8 dmaen? Um no. Told a maximum of 6...guess that they thought 6 over and above my keepers??? I dunno. ANyway that did not work very well setting the max # to draft.

Also widdled because some time after the draft ESPN/TSN immediately gave Marleau back his LW eligibility, which is what caused me to lose Mike Richards. Really not happy with that!! TOTALLY SCREWED, as I had to keep Rene Bourque as LW instead of RIchards at C and Marleau on LW! TOTAL PISSER.

So I had to make some moves from the pittance of players left.

Dropped the not even playing MA Bergeron---picked up Michal Neuvirth. (originally was going to dump Mason for Neuvirth but changed my mind)

Dropped the wonderfully useless JM Liles---picked up the wonderfully balanced player Ryan Callahan.

Dropped a Predator S (must be another initial ) Kostytsin cause who wants him? Useless whiner...and picked up NJ Devil power play guy Brian Rolston. Now lets hope he is not the guy waived so they can keep under the cap.

Dropped a Thrasher--having 1 is bad enough...Brian Little, and picked up Brendan Morrison to go with my 2 other Flemmes. I really do not like having 3 Flemmes but meh, we shall see.

So lineup right now looks like this:

Patrick Marleau - Mike Ribeiro-Jerome Iginla
Rene Bourque-Brendan Morrison-Teemu Selanne
Brian Rolston-Mikko Koivu-Alexei Kovalev
Matt Moulson-Kyle Turris-Ryan Callahan
Jason Blake-Michael Ryder

Lidstrom-Seabrook
Visnovsky-Vlasic
Pietrangelo-Poti

Luongo
Neuvirth
C. Mason

So....I could use a dman...willing to part with Blake/Ryder/Moulson/Kovalev or Mason to get one. Also expect me to be picking up a goon each and every week. Unless Mr Kovalev liked that fight, gonna definitely need someone to do it for me. Keeping Turris for now, as hearing he may get PP time with Doan. We shall see.

I think I am in trouble this season, but who knows...I am very active, and hope to be again this season since I do not have much choice as unable to attend drafts.

I've noted that this season the waiver limit changed from 4 per match to 11. Is that right? I did like the reduced number from last season.

From what I have seen in the rules in this thread it should be 7. I think though that since there were sooo many people who could not attend the draft that having a higher number for week 1 is fair. I don't care if we go back to 4 or 7 per week after week 1. But...11 is too many.

The acquisition limit scales according to the length of the match-up. Since the season started so close to the end of the week, ESPN is including these first four days with all of next week (an 11-day match-up), instead of having a short Thursday to Sunday match-up.

I think the way the limit ultimately works out is 1 acquisition per day, with 7 days being a standard match-up.

That sounds good!

It's nice to finally be underway with the new season, so far my combo players are certainly doing their jobs with Clowe picking up 2 assists and 7 PIM and Perry with 15 PIM. Speaking of combo players, whoever got Datsyuk must have been cheering last night when he picked up a Gordie Howe hattrick.

bruins72 wrote:Ouch! Somebody got Savard with their first pick after the keepers. That's rough. They don't know when he's coming back. I see '*" next to a bunch of injured players who are expected to be on the LTIR but I guess the autorankings ignored that and went purely off of last season's stats. That's a shame.

Yep... That was me...

First, extra long matchup is about to end so I thought it would be a good time to watch how L.A. Bald Uakaris have started their season. The opening matchup against Borås Boars has been very tight all the time and it seems that both teams are doing pretty well in many of the scoring categories so it can also be called as an encounter of two top teams.

First of all, I have changed three players since draft. First it was time for LW Fabian Brunnstrom to go, he was not getting any ice time. That change was made at Oct 10th. And yesterday I dropped LW Dan Carcillo and D Dennis Seidenberg. I hesitated picking up Carcillo in the first place as I normally don't take any Philly players in my team, but this time I thought I'd make an exception to get me a forward who may produce some points and will definitely get penalties. Well he didn't, so out of the door he was.

When Brunnstrom left I replaced him with LW Clarke MacArthur who has been a great FA pick, he shares the lead in scoring goals (before Friday's games) with his 4 goals in 4 games. ABU has also two other leaders in that category - Alex Ovechkin and Derek Roy.
Carcillo was replaced with LW Jarkko Ruutu and Seidenberg's substitute was D Brett Clark. I'm hoping they'll continue their good run but now it's too early to evaluate them.

ABU players playing under expectations:

G M.Kiprusoff - not actually playing badly, but expectations were high after pre-season games

D Z.Bogosian - suffering from minor injury explains much, but some improvement is what I'm looking forward to
D A.Greene - one assist and -5 in five games played is not enough, he is on the verge of leaving the team if not improving quickly

C J.Toews - I expect a lot more from my #1 center, he has to step up for the team
RW J.Langenbrunner - 3 assists and 13 shots on the goal are good but -4 is bad enough to keep him in this group for now

Players playing as expected:

G C.Anderson - he's our best goalie atm, he hasn't been stellar but he's been good
G J.Bernier - only played one game this far, I hope he'll get some more games or he'll need to give room to someone else

D A.Babchuk - started great scoring in his opening game, but after that it's been more quiet
D F.Tyutin - didn't expect much, haven't got much
D C.Ehrhoff - 2 PP goals in four games, it's a good start but not great, actually I wasn't sure if he should be in "under expectations" group
D S.Weber - 3 assists in four games, look above
D B.Clark - no games for us yet, not evaluated

LW J.Ruutu - no games for us yet, not evaluated

C E.Kane - shoots a lot, hopefully finds the net more often in the future

RW T.Brouwer - late round pick who has produced some points
RW E.Fehr - if his +/- stats were positive, he would easily be in next group
RW C.Stewart - without scoring 1+1 yesterday he would be one of the underperformers

Players playing above the expectations:

LW A.Ovechkin - I'm expecting a lot from him, but 1.75 points per game pace is still much
LW A.Steen - has been a nice surprise with his assists and his SOG
LW C.MacArthur - 3 goals in his two games for us, great start from this FA pick

C D.Roy - 5G 1A in five games, he has easily been our best center this far
C J.Stoll - 3 points in three games and +4, he's been a pleasant surprise for me
C T.J.Oshie - didn't expect him to do anything special, so 1G 2A and 2PPP is all extra points for us

The score is 6-5-1 for Boars now but the matchup is all but resolved, there are some 5-7 categories which can still turn to one way or another. It'll be much about today's games as there are just a few players on ice on Sunday. May the best team win!

One category I miss is golie shutout (one more category to balance between forwards, defenseman and goalies)

kUlapaa you can keep telling yourself how good you are. I am having a bad week. 1 goal from Iggy and none from Marleau. I am winning 6-5-1 vs marsac. Horrid week. Shocked I am ahead. Yet when I look at what the score would be with Boras it would be 8-2-2 for me.

And without including my 3 game winners tonight it would be 8-4 for me against you. So... That makes me think that both marsac and I have better teams than you this week. But to each their positive thinking.

Corinthian- goalies make up 3/23 players. 3 categories is enough for them.

Stinson-- Minus 30. What the Dickens?

You hit straight to the point, b-d, straight to the point. This season I'm gonna be mr. Positive Thinking himself, I'll make Ned Flanders to look like a demon (no offense, Ned).

You start your season telling us how you are sooo baad and "how's it possible that I'm winning with this bad roster, how bad does it make you all" kind of stuff week in week out. That's your approach and so be it.
I'm gonna dig the last good thing under all the dirt of the world and cherish it. I'm gonna thank my goalie for the one good save he made in the game instead of yelling at him for the nine goals he gave up easily. I'm gonna pat my top center's back and tell him that the shot was great but the opposite goalie was better this time, when we lose the shootout because of his poor finishing. I will even shake hands with the flopped top line player and hope him well when I walk him out of the door after firing him.
I will be mr Nice Guy. I will watch where it takes me. And if I have to dig my cupboard for my vinyl version of Billion Dollar Babies in winter, I will then deny it was me who wrote this one.

I just realized that Afinogenov plays in KHL. I drafted him and dressed him for the whole week darn ESPN rosters...

Boston Irish, let's suggest ESPN to include KHL stats I'm with you.