FUNHL News and Notes

Season's Greetings Everyone!

- It's funny, but this is the weakest feeling 20 point lead I've ever held in the pool. I know the stats say that the Heads are running away with things, but it really doesn't feel that way.

- I mentioned this in my e-mail, but Steve Downie clowning it up to the tune of 50+ points over the first 1/3rd of the season is a huge part of why the Heads are winning, and why the lead doesn't feel at all safe. Sure, he could finish with 40points and 300PIM (maybe the greatest TG season since Bob Probert), but there is no way I am comfortable counting on it.

- I've been really bad in not getting out the team reviews.

- I've been even worse in shepherding the FUNBA and doing team updates and reviews for everyone in it. Please don't kill me.

- I predict that as new young FPs come on line next year, at least two of; Kopitar, Toews, Zetterberg, and Erik Staal will be replaced. None of them are 'bad', but none of them qualify as 1st line Cs either.

- Among the candidates I'd put up to replace the departing Cs; Ryan Johanssen-C Clb, Alex Pieterangelo-D StL, Ryan Suter-D Min, Taylor Hall-L Edm, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins-C Edm, and Johnny Gaudreau-L Cgy.

- Chances of Edmonton catching Calgary in the standings = roughly 0.01%. The tears of Wayne Gretzky never tasted so good.

- Rob's decision to draft Drouin is edging from 'curious, could be a good move' into 'wasted two prime years of Tuuka Rask waiting for Drouin to be remotely productive'. territory.

- I'm going out on a limb and suggesting that Bob's combo of Parise-Lucic is the weakest FP pairing in the league. Despite what I just said about Drouin.

- Of all the teams in the league, the one that scares me the most is Dan's Great Whites. Why? Jagr once lost a scoring title and a goal scoring title to a white hot Joe Thornton blowing up in the 2nd half of a season. His team is thick at C, D, and G, and has nice weapons on the wing. Also, I hate Carey Price.

- The other guy to be scared of is Darrell. It's always f#$%^ing Darrell.

- If there is a more dissapointing pick for a team this year than Corey's selection of Jason Spezza I don't know what it is. Spezza should have been a ppg stalwart rocking the #2C role in Dallas. Instead, he's been invisible.

- The Edge have a terrific RW, a very ice set of pivots (Getzlaf, Johanssen, Little), and a very decent D corps, so why aren't they better? Well, the goaltending has been bad, trending to terrible, but outside of that, I honestly don't understand what the problem is. I think I say this every year about the Edge, but at some point his team should regress to the mean and be at least average, right?

- The Barbarians have a really nice platform to build on moving forward in Seguin and Karlsson. Two of the hardest pieces to find, a top line C, and an offensive D man will make the draft a lot easier moving forwards. Can't think of a time they had better FPs.

- Of all the teams the PV are invested in, having two LW from Winterpeg seems a bit like...overkill.

- Suicide by +/- has hit us in the holiday season. I can't say as I think it's a wise plan, but it is a plan.

- Why aren't the Knights Templar a bigger threat? Take a look at their C position; Pavelski, Backes, Schenn, Santorelli. That lineup scares exactly nobody.

- Chris has a chance (albeit slim) to go from first to worst. If he does he'll join me as the only GMs to complete the feat (and I was tradig ED picks to get it done). Best of luck Chris, I'm pulling for you!