Jason Arbuthnot here. Exhibition games are all ready and updating as we speak! Mark your calendars because as of this moment, Chris Neil is leading the NHL.You can check out how your prospects are being used in the line combo tool here (Senators example). I’m currently working on NEW tools for the opening of the regular season, so check back soon!

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Some cuts to pass along – only the notables:
Austin Watson (NSH)
Harrison Reed, Calvin Pickard (COL)

Nino Niederreiter has signed an ELC, along with Mr. Skinner. Nieds has a good shot at a roster spot and will almost certainly get the nine-game trial.

Tom Poti was brilliant – he took the small paycut and signed a two-year extension with the Caps. His agent did what anyone with a brain would do – he looked at the market. Now if only another 90% of them did that…

Correction on the cuts where I noted nobody of significance. Landon Ferraro was cut by Detroit, which is a known name, although not a surprise.

I notice that Mark Parrish is in Buffalo on a tryout. I’ll call him “the cat” from now on. For his nine lives. How many teams has he tried out on now in the last three years?

Casey Pierro-Zabotel suffered a broken finger and will miss the rest of Pittsburgh’s training camp. He was a long, long shot anyway for this year, but at least he could have made an impression for next year.

Brett Sterling had a great day in practice, scoring twice during scrimmage and both the Gazette and the team beatwriter came away impressed by his play of all the non-regulars.

Hilarious lawsuit on Mikael Grabovski. He (allegedly) punched a man and his wife in the face at the Olympics in a bar. Here is the “damage”: suffered a head injury, multiple facial fractures requiring reconstructive surgery, a back injury, trauma to his mouth, teeth and eyes, memory loss, a change in personality and ongoing headaches, among other things. Ummm yeah. This has to make you lose respect for lawyers and their greed and idiocy. What next, sue McDonalds for making their coffee too hot? Memory loss? Trauma to the mouth? Back injury? The Leafs should waive Orr and Brown, they have Grabovski to handle the enforcing.

The team cuts are starting, but I have yet to see known names. But they’ll get going with those soon.
Erik Ersberg left the ice with a hand injury yesterday. Bad time for that, what with Bernier breathing down his neck. In fact, an Ersberg injury should have Quick a little uncomfortable – the last thing he needs is Bernier on the bench. Future superstar.

It is expected that the Canes will announce the signing of rookie Jeff Skinner to an ELC today. He has a very real shot at a roster spot and is a future star.

The latest on Joffrey Lupul. He is cleared to skate.

Interesting interview with Benoit Pouliot. He has yet to turn 24, so it seems silly to write him off. He also just received a 50% raise in an era where raises are rare – and earned. With the Habs banking on his potential, he’ll get every opportunity to reach 45+ points so I think we as fantasy owners need to open our mind up to that possibility. And if he tops that mark this year, he’ll be a solid second liner going forward. But this year is key.

Last night we held the Expert Tier draft. Those who follow me on Twitter know all about it already, as I was doing play by play (and all that spam lost me nine followers in the process!). This is the happiest I have ever been in the DobberHockey draft – very pleased with my team. But when Ryan Ma singled me out after the draft as “not loving” my team, I took a second look. Yep, I still love it. But I realized it was full of no-names and expectations. Perhaps too much. But I addressed some of that with depth.

I’ll have a full blow-by-blow analysis in the Fantasy Guide hopefully later today, but here is my team:
C – Lecavalier, Eberle, Savard, Ribeiro
LW – Kovalchuk, Hall, Kunitz, Benn
RW – Perry, Simmonds, Brouwer, Frolik
D – Streit, Subban, Myers, McCabe, Schultz, Carle
G – Rinne, Leighton
Bench – Leino (LW), Seidenberg (D), Horcoff (C), Little (RW), Niemi (G)

See? Covered. I took Kovalchuk fifth overall because a) he had LW/RW eligibility (surprised me) and b) I felt I could get Rinne next round.

Hell, I ended up getting Rinne in Round 3 and taking Perry instead. Rinne is the No.1 goalie in my Draft List – no more Ellis stealing starts from him, and he’s on a team that is 100% defense. Rinne will be gold. And 40 wins.

Leighton was top of my Tier 2 list. Flyers are winning close to 50 games this year. What’s the worst Leighton will do? A steal. And just in case – I have Niemi, the better of the Shark goalies.

For PIM and multi cats, I have Perry, Simmonds, McCabe, Lecavalier is decent there, so is Savard…and Brouwer. For plus/minus, to shore that up, I took a guy who was plus-50 last year in Schultz. I dunno man, I like this team.

Question marks are – my faith in Eberle, Hall and Horcoff. If one falters, the others will. And Savard could play 80 games or 0 games this year. But aside from that, the squad is solid – and I can play the wire for centermen. I also know that Eberle will get RW eligibility at some point.