Trades, Trades, a Win, and More Trades

Looks like I’ve become the lone blogger. Haha. Regardless, it’s been an eventful week or so here for the California Wave. First of all, have you been reading out tweets? If you have, you could have seen how a trade comes to pass. That’s how I was able to work out my first trade since my last post.

Well, trade talks for Joe Pavelski fell through, but I did get another Shark. I successfully offered Henrik Zetterberg to the Calgary Cavalry in exchange for Patrick Marleau. It could go either way, and Zetterberg has been awesome so far, but, I can’t resist getting my favorite player. Besides, how can you hate on the HTML! (Heatley, Thornton, Marleau Line)

From then on, it seems like I just got a couple great trade offers. We were able to shore up our D a lot by acquiring Andrei Markov from the Aviators for Jarret Stoll. I liked Stoll, but we needed Defenseman in the worst way. Markov is now probably our best fantasy D-man now. Plus, we didn’t even have wait for Markov to heal up. He was back by the time we got him.

We also just recently acquired Rick Nash for Claude Giroux. Yeah, that didn’t take me too long to accept. Talk about “buy low, sell high.” Since we got him though, Nash has seemed to click on a line with Brassard, making our team even better. Brassard is actually leading the team in points this week so far. WHAT!? Maybe that wasn’t the worst 4th round pick ever.

Things are looking up for the Wave. We’re winning this week, and we’ve got the 2nd most points scored by any team in the IceHL. I think my next move might be to try to pick up a new goalie through a trade either in a package deal with a forward and goaltender, or just a forward (Although that Toews for Varlamov deal that went down a while back seemed like a bit too high of a price to pay).

Until next time: keep it real, keep it fresh, and keep it real fresh. (Yeah, I brought it back.)

I Need Better Defense...

No, not defenseman (although we aren‘t exactly deep there), but team defense. The Wave have let up more points against than any other team in the league. And it’s not even close. Over two weeks, opponents have scored a combined 315.3 points. The nearest team to us is at 288.1. The Seattle Aviators have only had 180.8 scored against them. The average is roughly 250.

So, although the Wave are in the top half of points for, we’re 0-2. And that is the fatal flaw of these head-to-head leagues. But, you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love head-to-head leagues. The excitement on a week to week basis is so much higher than with a rotisserie league. Not to mention the bragging rights and trash talk that can go on. Again, if you haven’t been following the IceHL Twitter accounts, go do that now. They’re listed right under the spiffy new logo at the IceHL League Office.

As far as the team roster goes, I’ve made another calculated decision picking up Matthew Lombardi. He, like Pominville, got dropped when he was hit with a concussion. Once again, I like his chances enough when he’s healthy that I can sacrifice the couple points I could get out of his roster spot until he comes back.

I’ve also been working closely over the past few days with the GM of the Quebec Armada on a possible trade that would see Joe Pavelski come to California. We’ll see if we can work that out.

Oh! And Derrick Brassard has actually started to contribute a bit. Color me surprised.

P.S. On a personal note, I spent last weekend doing play-by play on a tournament here in San Jose that featured the Wenatchee Wild, who you may remember from the design contest featured right here on Icethetics.

Scoring, Failed Trades and Injuries

Well, the first week of the NHL and IceHL seasons have concluded.

Unfortunately, the Wave fell their first week to the Edmonton Kodiaks 166-180.1.  It was a pretty good matchup, and I think the Wave just hit some bad luck and are still pretty well off. The Wave still scored the 7th most points this week. If we can keep that up, I should be able to grab a playoff spot. And once we’re in, anything can happen.

I’ve been pretty happy with the new addition Nathan Horton, who has scored 3-2-5 in 3 games. Along with Ovechkin and Sharp, they’re forming quite an awesome top line. Also, Doug Weight has been a pleasant surprise, putting up 1-4-5 in 6 games. Great value for a 17th round pick there.

Unfortunately, my favorite whipping boy, Derrick Brassard has come nowhere near the FOURTH ROUND PICK the auto pick draft took him at… Still upset with that one… Could you tell? I’m willing to hear some trade offers for him. Tempting, eh? Haha

Speaking of trades, I tried sending out a few offers for a couple of my favorite players that were both rejected. I tried trading Henrik Zetterberg for Mike Richards and also Keith Yandle straight up for Andrei Markov, figuring I might be able to get him considering he’s still injured for a while. Worth a try at least.

In the meantime, the Wave were able to pick up Jason Pominville off of waivers. That was a calculated decision. Even though he did suffer that terrible injury, he should still be a steal once he does come back.

By the way, Chris mentioned this at the league office, but make sure to follow the team pages on Twitter. Here’s the Wave’s page.

A Cat's Chance in Hell?

Well, the first week's match-ups are coming to a close and we're getting a first glimpse of how the teams are stacking up. For the Hellcats, it's been and up-and-down week so far, with our current total of 134.2 points helped by Khabibulin's massive opening night shutout. Bulin has 21.6 points from 3 games so far, with decent performances from Ilya Bryzgalov and Mike Smith adding 12.8 and 14.2 points respectively from 2 games each.

With the Nashville starting goalie Rinne suffering an injury, I dropped Boucher on Sunday night and added Anders Lindback, who has played two full games while on the Hellcats roster and has notched up 2 wins with 17.4 points. I am really happy with the points chipped in from my goalies, accounting for almost half my total up to this point!

My highest scoring skater has been Matt Duchene, with 10.2 points over 3 games. The biggest surprise so far has been the performance of Brian Bickell, a free agent pick-up after dropping the injured Vinny Prospal. Nine points through four games has helped the team immensely, considering the lack of points from the more "elite" players, the most high profile example of which being Iginla, zero points through three games. As a team, we need more goals. Six goals from 52 total games is abysmal!

There have been some massive scores put up by the other teams, and I'm hoping that my goalies will continue to put up some decent points, but some of my skaters really need to up their game! With a few long-term injuries in my squad, I've got some interesting choices to make in the coming weeks!

Silver Linings

As I write this, my IceHL Washington Sentinels are a mere 48 or so hours away from mercifully wrapping up our epic pasting at the hands of the Saskatoon Sharpshooters. And yet I'm not particularly unhappy.

Fresh off the draft and before the season started, Chris hosted a live chat here at Icethetics, and among his questions to those attending was simply "which team looks good?" Having looked over the rosters only briefly, Saskatoon was the first one to really jump out at me, and I said so. Top-notch scorers up front in Stamkos and St. Louis, some solid D, and better-than-average goalies in Quick and Halak. I didn't even realize at the time that they were my opening week matchup, but when I found out, I knew I'd have my hands full.

Did we ever.

On the strength of big weeks from the aforementioned Lightning, err, Sharpshooters, and a 3G/1A output from Brandon Dubinsky, the Saskatoon offense has already put up 104 points — more than enough for a comfortable lead over my motley crew all by themselves. But the goalies are what really did me in.

Right before opening night, Saskatoon swooped in and grabbed Flyers rookie Sergei Bobrovsky, and with Halak and Quick, the group has combined to go 6-1 with only 12 goals against. Their collective performance this week has produced a whopping 49.6 points ... and therein lies my optimism.

As I mentioned in my last post, I knew the goalie positions would be valuable, and these results have borne that out, I think. In fact, a big reason that we're not even close to being competitive is the performance of my own netminders — Miller, Rask, and Fleury have combined for a 1-5 record and 22 goals against, making their total output a measly 7.8 points (though Miller is playing right now, so hopefully we'll see that inch up a bit).

The Caps' Varlamov has been on IR to start the year, but even without him, I don't think anybody would have predicted such a poor start from these three guys. So while my rather embarrassing deficit is certainly due in some part to a talent deficiency on offense, a lot of it has simply been bad luck. My goalies will turn it around — my bet is sooner rather than later — and I expect we'll be much more competitive going forward.