August 14, 2011
Dobber Sports
2011-08-14
Greetings, from London, Ontario!
Definitely need to backtrack on my Florida statement, see comments below. Just needed time to digest it and really think about it. As I said, it was just off the top of my head. Kind of shocked, knee-jerk reaction. But they really have come along.
Those of you trying to register and failing – we have now fixed it so it asks the proper security question. For some reason, it had been asking the Baseball question yet requiring the Hockey answer. D’oh! Very sorry about this, try it now. If you still have trouble, email me personally on my blackberry at dobber at dobberhockey dot com.
So what do you think of the new DobberSports hub? Interested in your comments. Really just a place to gather all the latest info/news from the Dobber Sports Network. Within a week or two we will be offering packages – Bronze, Silver and Gold. These will go with the Ultimate Fantasy Pack and involve choosing a subscription or three from the various members of the DSN. We set the highest price (Gold) at $60 – for the Ultimate Pack and a subscription to Frozen Pool, Goalie Post and Hockey Pool Geek. That's coming up soon. We'll also be making available two iPhone Apps – one to navigate the site, which I think will be free (still early on that one) and one making available my draft list as a drafting app. That one will probably be $4.99. Neither app will be available this month. Hopefully early September.
Interesting under-the-radar (and very smart) move – the Jets have invited Janne Pesonen to camp. If you remember, he took a shot once at the NHL, but with the Penguins – who trust their prospects about as much as they would trust OJ. So all he did was pound out 82 points in 70 AHL games, and barely got a sniff in his seven games of NHL action. The Jets have more room than the Pens did. It's a long shot, but something to watch for and I'll be rooting for him.
This writer from Kukla's Korner predicts 25 goals and 45 points from Niederreiter this season.
Gragnani's two-way deal is precisely why promising fantasy stars end up in Europe. They get no breaks, even if they earn them. He could lead the team in preseason points, and still get cut. I'll never forget Lonny Bohonos…
As an Andrei Kostitsyn owner in one league, I was secretly happy about his little vent last week. I see visions of what happened to Sergei on a new team. Andrei was wrong, of course – his linemates were fine, he's just whining. But all the same, a fresh start really helps and I hope he gets one.
The Flames have signed Scott Hannan to a one-year deal at $1 million. It's certainly a buyer's market at this point. Fantasy relevant in the sense that this move pushes TJ Brodie out of the Top 6.
Put me down for not agreeing with the ESPN ranking of the Florida Panthers as the top organization in hockey. As someone who releases a Prospects Report every year, I can safely tell you that their farm system is not first. I should sit down and do an actual ranking some day. But without doing this properly, I can only ballpark it – I would say 10th. Which is much better than 20th – where I'd ballpark them a year ago. Just another reason to ask ESPN to just stay out of hockey altogether and quit pretending you care about it. Do us all a favor and cut hockey loose from your repertoire.
Peter Harrold has signed with the Devils. He replaces Max Noreau, who went to Europe. Although, since we've already seen Harrold at the NHL level, we're not as excited and we can tone down his upside tremendously vs. Noreau's.
Top 10 Yzerman goals. No.1 was absolutely gorgeous:
Keep firing me YouTube clips!