Drunks Digest

Across The Pond (submitted by B. Ommen)

Twelve days of play in the books and we’re back across the pond with a significantly different Euro division. Sitting atop the JD division is Hanover’s Galaxy. And while Marcel’s success is impressive, it is not nearly as unexpected as the Euro’s performance thus far. Tied for 3rd in
the JD are the Piranhas and Kings, followed by the Blizzard at 5th, and the Nighthawks and Vikings tied with 9 points for the 7th spot in the conference. The Galaxy are winning by hanging a league high 49 goals on opponents while allowing in only 18, league low GA number they share with the Blizzard.

Not surprisingly, Hanover has some of the league’s early scoring leaders in Brendan Shanahan and Steve Sullivan. Stockholm’s John Leclair and Hanover’s Jeff Friesen are tied for 2nd in assists while Antwerp’s Brian Savage (picked up right before the first game) leads the league in power play goals, 2 ahead of former IceBat and Euro exile Pavel Bure. Zurich’s Rob Blake leads three Kings players by one for the plus-minus lead at +14. In goaltending news, Jose Theodore’s name appears in the second slot for save percentage and wins.

That’s the past 12 across the pond, now for the future:

The Kings and Nighthawks have a rivalry game on day 13, while the Piranhas and Blizzard square off at day 18. That game comes during a rough section of the Zurich schedule as the Piranhas face the Battalion, Prowlers and Spartans before the meet the surprising Blizzard and Hasek.

With the Blaze’s strongly revamped roster, Kent Armstrong was really hoping for a revamped record, and that has yet to materialize. If there’s a GM to watch early in the season, he’s the guy with the most pressure. Antwerp’s GM would also be a possible candidate given some rash statements made in the mill, but it seems his suffering is due as much to a pernicious injury bug as it is to an unfortunate underperformance by the IceBats.

>From Across the Pond, I’m Brett Ommen

Should rest days be part of the sims?? This has always been a question for me since I started playing Fantasy Hockey. This league, more so than any other has always strived to achieve an element of realism, and has always done a pretty good job. This begs the question should we sim rest days??

During the season, at any given time there are teams who are playing as many as 6 or more nights in a row. This is obviously taking its toll on the energy levels on the players of that team. Now there are not many “real” teams who play that many nights in a row, but most teams in the DWSHL cope fairly well with this, but does this factor contribute to injuries in the league?? Speaking of injuries, while each player recovers at their own rate, the fact still remains, a player that suffers an injury during a time in which their team is playing 6 or more games in a row, will probably miss more games than they probably should. A player who suffers a week long injury will probably miss 4-5 games while they should probably only miss 2-3 in a week long span.

Now I’m not proposing massive schedule changes or any changes at all. More than anything I guess I’m just wondering what the league would be like or how the league would be different if we did sim rest days. If star players were not fatigued, would we have a more competitive league? How many GM’s in this league get excited when we see a team that on paper is better than ours, has a tired goalie or their best player is road weary. I know I do.

Just a little food for thought.

Awful/Off Season
Patrick Lalime's numbers swelled as the IceDogs victories became fewer. After his allstar performance in 2003, Lalime fell to the bottom of most of the league in most major goaltending statistics. The tender's save % plummeted to a dismal .863 and his goals against shot up over four. Rumours swirled that the IceDogs would perhaps move Lalime and get a veteran goalie to play with Kari Lehtonen. Although Harvie implicitly suported Lalime, it appeared that Lalime may be headed in a new direction. At the draft, when the IceDogs selected MA Fleury, this appeared to be a very realistic scenerio. Harvie, however, showed faith in his goalie moved Fleury.

Help's On The Way
Harvie then signed retired goaltender, Bill Ranford as the goalie coach to work with Lalime and Lehtonen. Lalime worked closely with Ranford before the rest of the team showed up for training camp and Lalime's game and confidence appeard to be back to his early 03 form. Ranford helped Lalime with small aspects of the game, and doing more of a critique then coaching, says Ranford, "Patrick knows what I'm talking about when I point something out. Sometimes it's hard to notice yourself"

One Foot After the Other
Now with a revamped lineup, Patrick Lalime is looking to backstop the IceDogs in taking that first big step in his GMs masterplan. The IceDogs are a confident bunch and state home ice advantage as their goal for the season. Lalime, doesn't like to state personal goals, but he is hungry for not only team success but personal success. Lalime wants to be known as a guy who makes the clutch save when the team needs it, and not to be the one to give up that next goal and if he can become that, the IceDogs should take that first step with great success.

The Kingston IceDogs had been stuck in a holding patern for their first three seasons of existence. The IceDogs first three seasons seemed identical, finishing around the 40 win mark and then eventually bowing out in the first round of the playoffs. GM Harvie decided on the take one step backwards and two forward approach. Last year, as expected, the IceDogs took a step backward winning a meagre 24 games. Patrick Lalime who is entering his third season as the IceDogs backstop hopes that he and the IceDogs can take that first step forward this year.

Selkirk, MB - HOLY JUMPIN' The Defending farm champs Selkirk Rush(winnipeg t-rex) are on the right foot again, proving that they will be the farm team to beat once again. The Selkirk Rush beat the Mosquitos(crunch) 19-2. Even Better than that the Rush after 1 Game have Dan Fritsche with 7pts. Also Dmitri Chernykh has 4pts. With a good performance from Evgeni Konstantinov, The Rush clearly have their season set. Not to mention after 1 Game the whole T-Rex farm team (25players) has at least 1 point. Thats amazing, after 1 game everyone has a point. The T-Rex are happy with the fast development of their farm team and its prospects

Winnipeg, MB - Wow! After a big draft and comming off a farm championship and a Division title the T-Rex may finally be back to their old ways. The T-Rex ranked by the 3 commishes as the 7th best team has been beaten badly by The Fermont Crunch, also known as the 28th best team out of 32. The T-Rex havn't really faired up to well with the small teams. Lifetime against the Crunch, storm,rams,attack have been sad. Even more sad than getting beaten by the Crunch 5-2 with a rookie Andrei Kastsitsyn scoring 3pts on me. "Maybe the rumors are true," said T-Rex Gm Ryley Weir. "I May have to find a "real" goalie that will play hard and well. The T-Rex are supposed to win, and when we dont the media and criticize this organization. I still think Evgeni Nabokov is our goalie here, but maybe we do need something better." When asked for a comment Steve Yzerman had to say," Its bad for our organization. We need to return to the form we were in the last two season's. I think what we showed tonight was awfull." Maybe the were awfull. In fact, none of the roster that played tonight had played a game all pre-season. After his bad performance Evegeni Nabokov had to say this," It was the D. When we lose, everyone points the finger at me."
Lifetime DWSHL records
Crunch: Lost 4 of last 6 Rank:28
Attack: 9-7-2 Rank: 24th
Storm: 10-7-0 Rank: 29th
Rams: 3-5-1 Rank: 25th