This Month in Fantasy Sports -- January

Well we return now to the slightly delayed, but still important feature here at Getting Glenergized, the progress of my Kodiak hockey pool. Now, if you checked back a few weeks ago, you would have seen that my roster looked like this.

C - LeCavalier, Jokinen, E, Staal, J. Carter,
RW - Jagr, Radulov, Knuble, Goddard, Pomminville, Guerin
LW - Holmstrom, Brown, Prospal
D - Rafalski, Campbell, Redden, Aucoin, Schneider
G - Nabokov, Budaj, Price
IR - Carcillo


Also, Further reminder that every day you can dress 3 each of C, RW, LW, G, plus 4 D, and 2 other Forwards. Also, that skaters get points as follows: 1 G, 1 A, 0.75 +/-, .5 PPG, .5 PPP, .5, SHG, .5 GWG. .5 PIM, and that goalies get 2 points for a win and 3 for a shutout.

So over the course of January I was relatively active, since other people in the pool have been making huge charges, and chipping away at my lead.

Drop - Add

RW Guerin - LW Malone
D Aucoin - D Zidlicky
G Price - G Garon
G Budaj - G Emery
D Campbell - D Byfuglien
RW Pomminvilee - RW Armstrong
D Byfuglien - D Commodore
RW Armstrong - C Umberger
G Garon - G Theodore
Active LW Carcillo from IR - RW Goddard

So a pretty active month for me I dare say.

I cut Guerin for Malone, since I left myself with no flexibility on the Left side, as I only had three Left Wingers...my bad. I cut Aucoin for a surging Zidlicky, a move that I'm pretty happy with. And I cut Price for Garon when I heard about Price's demotion to Hamilton, and when I was doing this, I realized that Budaj was getting chased out from between the pipes by Theodore, so I cut him for Emery. Now, I realize that Emery is seeing a lot of the bench right now, but I think that a trade of either Emery or Gerber is fairly likely over the next few weeks, which should lead to him getting more starts. I added Byfuglien since he is listed as a D man but was seeing time on the top forward line, so it was an easy pick. Although, I cut him since he was slumping for the always consistent Mike Commodore. I was playing around with that extra forward spot, first cutting Pomminville for Armstrong, and then Armstrong for Umberger, trying to find the best available player regardless of position. After Garon's hot streak seemed to end, I decided to go for a bit of a gamble on Jose Theodore, who has been on a tear of late, I just hope that he'll play more like it's 2002 and less like it's 2007 now. Finally, when Carcillo returned I decided that I had enough goons and I cut Eric Goddard, who has been fairly quiet of late.

Man that was a busy month...

I guess my lesson that I learned this month, is pay attention to sporting news!!!!! I can't stress enough how important the mitigating factors are when it comes to hockey pools. Had I not have been paying attention to the news, I would have left Price in for a few extra games, costing me some valuable points. Also, I know that I am taking a gamble on Ottawa making a goaltending trade, but I think that it's a smart play on my part. The Sens need to make a push if they want to win the Cup and they could use either of their goalies as attractive Trade Bait to give them some depth and grit up front.

My lead has been cut down, like I mentioned, at one point during December I was leading by 111 points, and this morning it only 49.75 points....scary...hopefully the return of the feisty Carcillo will help pad my lead.

If the lead gets down below 40 I might need to do something drastic. I'll be sure to keep you informed, until then, take care and happy pooling.

Until next time,

G