Mark Recchi potted a pair of goals in his second game in a Boston uniform. He played 16:37 with Bergeron and Kobasew. So far, his presence has hurt Wheeler, who was a healthy scratch. Again – this situation won't last, but Recchi will ride the high of joining a new team into late this month.

Eric Staal had six points and Carolina nine goals – that's 15 goals in two games since bringing back Eric Cole.

An interesting game to me was the Isles scoring seven times, including six on Brodeur. What you saw was all the kids actually getting a chance. Here is the lowdown:

– Josh Bailey two points.
– Sean Bergenheim three goals and a plus-3 in 17:11 of ice time. I picked him up this week in one of my leagues and suggest you do the same.
– Kyle Okposo scored and had 18 minutes of ice.
– Mike Iggulden, a 26-year-old undrafted minor leaguer who has yet to be given a chance, notched two assists and was a plus-2 in his second career game and first as an Islander. He played 12:37.
– Give Jack Hillen another two points. That gives him four in four games (and plus-4). Pick him up if you need a d-man. He was a preseason dark horse of mine and now he is finally getting the chance.

I'll keep the ramblings short today, since they are so late (in no small part to the "DobberHockey day in Toronto" yesterday – thanks to Eastern Edge's Russ Miller, Stu's Slant's Stuart McDonald, and the DobberHockey readers that I had the pleasure of meeting and partaking in some beverages with). I will, however, tell you about some of the moves I made in a couple of my leagues during "deadline week":

League 1: These rules can be found in the "Starting a Pool" section, (keeper league #1).

We have since added a rule where just the top eight teams qualify for the postseason. We keep our roster's for the NHL's postseason, but now the bottom five do not get to partake. It was my hope to get my rebuilding team into the top 8 this season. This new rule made for an interesting deadline, but it would have been more interesting if nine or 10 teams were in the mix instead of just a clear-cut eight. That being said, I had a very real shot at gaining 150 points with two trades and putting myself into fourth. That would send the current #8 guy into a panic as he would find himself out of the mix with probably the best playoff team (he is the defending two-time playoff champ).

Trade 1: I moved Eriksson and Huselius and acquired Briere. This was because I was fairly close to a deal involving my Filatov and O'Sullivan, and acquiring Nash and Carter, but I didn't have enough "sure thing" components on my side of the deal and didn't want to part with Mueller. Landing Briere allowed me to make Trade 2 and still hang onto Mueller…

Trade 2: I moved Briere, Filatov, O'Sullivan, Nodl and two second rounders and acquired Nash, Carter, Lucic, Legwand and two third rounders. This gained me about 70 points and put me 80 points shy of eighth place with ONE trade left (we get six trades between Nov. 1 and the deadline). Now – I like Rick Nash and Milan Lucic, but I KNOW that there are a LOT of poolies out there who put these guys on pedastals. Wanting to take advantage of this, I put an offer in to the ninth-place guy who had a terrible playoff team and was more interested in rebuilding. He was a "seller" and he had the most points to give.

*NOTE: I would never have traded Nikita Filatov if I did not own him in all three keeper leagues. It's dangerous to have your hopes resting on one player in three different leagues – and scary. So I decided to trade him in one.*

I then offered up Nash, Vermette (who had been traded to CBJ), Lucic and Gerbe for Cammalleri, Alfredsson, Jason Blake and St. Louis. This would gain me about 90 and entrench me in the Top 8. It was also about an hour before the deadline. I was prepared to add a first rounder, but would have backed off if he asked for Peter Mueller. Well – he thought he would do better selling off piecewise so he blindsided me by trading Antropov and Blake to someone else. Then he wanted me to rework the deal without Blake.

Meanwhile, I had another deal for Nash in place (more on that below) if this one fell through. Well, not having Blake meant that I would gain 75 instead of 90. No good. So I was already sour on reworking the deal. When he started talking about TWO first rounders, I pretty much shut the door. The deadline has passed and he still has Alfredsson on his team – he better hope there is still gas in the tank next year!

Trade 3 background: As always with "big" names, I announced to the pool that I was moving Nash. Somebody offered me van Riemsdyk, Brett McLean (PHO) and a 1st for him. Since this was the same guy who, just 18 months ago, traded Kopitar for FIVE first-round picks, I mentioned that to him. He immediately came back with JVR, McLean and three firsts. That piqued my interest, but at the time I had more interest in getting into the playoffs (since I have Crosby and a few Pens, plus Price). I tucked that away. After Blake was traded… I went back to this guy and told him to sub in Purcell for McLean. He agreed and we did the deal. A few minutes later, he called me back and said he wanted to keep one of those firsts, but asked if I would take a different first and he would throw in a second for my trouble. I jumped on that, of course, since we are talking about 2011 and who knows what will happen by then.

Trade 3: I moved Nash and acquired JVR, Purcell, three first rounders and a second.
The deal for Nash was unprecedented. Sure, it put him into second place, but he paid a high price for his star. Meanwhile, he set me up for years and moved my rebuilding plan one step closer. Since I won before the lockout with old guys – and traded what few assets I had to land Crosby – this process has been slow and painful. This is made slower by having 12 other highly intelligent owners. It's hard to get "deals" in this league, which makes this Nash deal that much more special.

My team now:

PRO: Lucic, Samsonov, Vermette, Purcell, Legwand, Carter, JVR, Mueller, Crosby, Staal, Stajan, Fleischmann, Price
RESERVE: Ryan Whitney, Kontiola, Sterling, Colborne, Gerbe, Hornqvist, Winchester, Letang, Goligoski, Caputi, Grabovski, Laich and Bryzgalov.
PICKS (4 rounds): 2009 two 1sts, two 2nds, three 3rds, two 4ths. 2010 one 1st, one 2nd, one 3rd, two 4ths. 2011 three 1sts, one 2nd, one 3rd, one 4th

Tomorrow I'll ramble about my other league.