Fantasy Guide, updated as of yesterday, can be found here.

Brent Lemon, our new columnist, and his wife just had a baby boy. The baby came a couple of weeks early, but everything is fine. Congratulations Brent!

Pavol Demitra will be out for at least six more weeks after undergoing shoulder surgery. He will not return until likely November. The Band-Aid Boy wasn’t expected to play a full season anyway, but I would further remove another five games off your expecations (assuming you already removed 10 or 15 in the first place)

Funny story. I get an email from a reader who figures I would love this joke he just had sent to him. It was a list of “Guys” at the fantasy draft. I look closer – and it’s Burnsy’s list! It is making the email rounds already, and they removed the DobberHockey references (again with the hiding of my site from your competitors, geez when are you gonna realize this site is no longer a secret lol). I really wish Burnsy would get credit, as it’s a great piece. Unfortunately, thousands of people are going to see this in their email over the next few weeks and know nothing of who wrote it. Okay, so it went from “funny story” to “ah, what could have been”. I responded to the guy and said “did you know this is on my site today?” It turns out, he didn’t get to my site yet. He didn’t know!

Now you can put this to rest – the IIHF has finally approved Jiri Hudler’s transfer card. He’s gone for two years now.

Andy Hilbert is on the list of invitees for the Wild. An underrated offensive player who needs skilled linemates to give you anything. Only worth watching if he can latch on with Koivu.

Mark Mancari did not report to the Sabres’ camp yesterday. He has yet to sign with the Sabres, not that he’s an important cog or anything.

As Johnson reported in his coverage of the Leafs rookie tournament, prospect Viktor Stalberg is really turning heads. He has the size and maturity to play in the NHL, but the Leafs are deep team. Deep with about 20 third liners, but still deep nonetheless. So if he makes the squad it will be at the expense of a Tyler Bozak, Christian Hanson, Jiri Tlusty or others with a similarly non-guaranteed spot. He is ranked 102 on my prospects list, but will move up in tomorrow’s update. His upside is around 70 points long term.

Remember Boots Del Biaggio? He’s getting eight years in the big house. Man those Americans really come down on the white collar criminals. In Canada, he would get a stern warning and probably no dessert. Later you would probably see him smoking a cigar behind the courthouse with the judge and a couple of MP’s.

The flaw in Del Biaggio’s plan – and this flaw is seen in many a billionaire and millionaire: he didn’t know how much was enough. Frankly, once I hit $2.5 million in the bank (which for him would have been years and years ago), I’m out. Time to enjoy life. But for some reasons, morons who have $3 million want to work hard to make it $4 million. Dummies who have $4 million will put in 60-hour weeks for a couple of months to make it $5 million. That’s their downfall! Anyway, full “Boots” story can be found here.

The Blues have signed former King Derek Armstrong to a two-way contract. Had he not signed that, he would have been a “training camp invitee” I am sure.

More training camp invitees:
Christian Backman, MIN
Martin Skoula, MIN (oops – guess he should have pushed harder to be re-signed in the spring!)
Blair Betts, PHI

It’s 9/9/09 and soon it will be 9:09am. Know what that means? Me neither.