April 10, 2014
steve laidlaw
2014-04-10
This has been a pretty disappointing fantasy season for me. Any hopes of competing in the DobberHockey Expert's League were tanked when Jonathan Quick got hurt early on. It didn't help that the Devils seemed dedicated to Martin Brodeur's mediocrity leaving Cory Schneider few starts to work with.
I won the regular season in my friends/family league but got dumped in the first round when Alexander Ovechkin decided to take his post-Olympic sabbatical. What's that? He's been playing this whole time? You could have fooled me.
I did have my best ever finish in the UHL salary cap league with many of DobberHockey's own writers/readers. I made it all the way to the Conference Finals in spite of Marc-Andre Fleury and Jonas Hiller falling off once the calendar flipped to March. I was proud of that finish and it's something to build off of.
Patrick Sharp made a great play to assist on Petr Budaj's game winner for Chicago. Just a brilliant tape-to-tape pass.
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Apparently Jaroslav Halak intends to hit the free agent market this summer. This doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of his return to Washington but not if Adam Oates is the coach. But Oates could definitely be gone. The whole handling of goaltenders this season was miserable. Definitely buy low on Braden Holtby if you can though.
Again, assuming Oates is gone Holtby should have a bounce back season.
As for Halak, off the top of my head I see openings in goal for the Islanders and Wild. Also, the Jets could use someone to plug the opening in Ondrej Pavelec's five-hole.
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The Canucks canned Mike Gillis and then hired Trevor Linden as their new President of Hockey Operations. It remains to be seen what they will do with John Tortorella or who they will hire as their new GM.
I'm not always a fan of change but this seems like it was a pretty necessary move. We'll see what they do with Ryan Kesler this summer as well but I still think the Sedins have a lot left in the tank, which means they could make a quick turnaround.
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Apparently Brendan Shanahan has been offered a job with the Leafs, which is just perfect. What has been more inconsistent over the past few years, Shanahan's discipline or the Leafs play?
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Justin Bourne with an interesting piece on how coaches manipulate players and how that changes come playoff time.
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You can follow me on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw.
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