Shallow Frozen Water

if you don’t have the goaltending …

you’re not going to win.  simply put.  i commish my work league which is a 16 team roto league where you have to fill in 82 games at two starting goaltender slots.  that’s 16 people all fighting to get their hands on any starting goaltender in the game.  things have gotten so desperate that people have “chosen” to deal Dion Phaneuf for Jason Labarbera and Ryan Whitney for Ondrej Pavelic.  how insane is that?  it’s actually the same guy who has dealt both goaltenders and is now solidly at the top of the league.  essentially he saw that there was desperation setting in and decided to capitalize.  i personally was offering him Mark Streit for Labarbera and arguing that there was no way he’d land an elite D for Labarbapapa.  two days later he has PIMy D (that’s what i call Dion Phaneuf) in the fold.  criminal.  and boy was i pissed.  yesterday i offered a PP QB (Berard) to a guy for a backup goaltender (Raycroft) and got turned down.  what kind of fantasy hockey world are we living in anyway?

i bring this up because … all of us just need to settle down.  it looks like the Sens will (eventually) trade one of the G’s somewhere (i’m thinking Emery to LA anytime soon), and can’t we all just realize that MA Fleury is and will be the Pens G,  Kari Lehtonen will take the job back when he returns, and Carey Price is going to be a superstar.   i still say that Tampa should make a move for Huet and Ryder by seeing what they could get by offering up Vinnie Prospal, but i have heard no concrete rumour to support that though.

why do i care about this?  because my goaltending in my work league is Fleury, Emery, Price and Halak.  i sure hope that Halak keeps stirring things up to get himself moved to another organization where he can be a backup at least, i just need some more goaltending stats.  Emery has started 2 of the Sens last 8 games and he gave up 4 goals each time,  Fleury has been so cold that you’d think he actually played here in Winnipeg, and Price plays masterfully on the few occasions that they let him get in the pool.  as you can figure, i’m in 11th in this pool and i’m not very happy about it.

DO NOT PANIC (unless your name is Arthur Dent).  stars will shine.  people don’t forget how to play the game or wake up from their afternoon nap and their reflexes have gone to hell over the course of the afternoon.  i may not ever climb the insurmountable hill that has become the “saves” category in my league but that doesn’t mean that i still can’t bounce back in “wins” and “GAA”, and i fully intend to.

ok, some goalie notes for you.  Fleury has righted the ship with a 26 save performance against the Isles last night.  i don’t imagine we’ll hear great amounts from Sabourin anymore because Fleury is decidedly the better goaltender.

with all the talk of the Sharks offense this year they sure gave enough defense last night that  Nabokov didn’t have to work very hard for the shuttie against the dogs.  Nabokov doesn’t get mentioned in the top 5 goalies in the game very often but i’m not sure why, he’s got skills and he’ll get a ton of wins.

Tim Thomas doesn’t get much love from fantasy hockey pundits and i think it might be because he doesn’t exactly play a “pretty” game.  the boy gets it done though and when your other option in Boston is the seemingly perrenial injury that is Manny (not being Manny) Fernandez then you just keep going with the hot hand.

i read one preseason prediction in ESPN magazine saying that the Panthers would win the Southeast because of the addition of Tomas Vokoun.  now i love Vokoun as an option but my initial reaction was that there was NO way that the Cats would finish ahead of the Canes or Lightning this season, and they won’t.  i think Vokoun might be the best goalie in the Southeast but i just don’t see that offense as being good enough to get the number of wins needed to take the division.

Niklas Backstrom is better than ANY goalie who has EVER played in the NHL in Minnesota, and that includes the North Stars.  now having said that he gave up an extremely WEAK 5-hole goal to Jarret Stoll last night that looked like Stoll was just passing it to him.  in that defensive system and if the Wild can stay healthy then Nikl-Back could contend for a lot of Vezinas and pull down a ton of wins in a very tough division.

there has been some debate of late so let me just dispel things right here, Chris Mason is the Predators best goaltender.  if you traded too much to land Dan Ellis recently like i read one guy on ESPN bragging to say, then you just got hoofed in the nads.

did anyone else see Martin Biron ready to take off and succeed this season?  i did.  not to be too braggy about it.

Martin Brodeur and Bobby Lou (that would be Luongo) have not “lost it”.  keep the faith baby.