October 23, 1997 

Hey everyone. First a correction before I look at the scores from last week. If you didn’t notice, I had the scores for Charlie and Rick reversed in their game. Rick had 30 and won to go to 1-2. Charlie had 28 and lost to fall to 0-3. Sorry for the confusion. 

Grant 46 Brett 28
I crushed Brett and move into first place in the Millen division at 2-0-1 and a tie for second place in total points. I was led by Lindros who had 9 points and my defensemen, who contributed 16 points to lead the league for the week. 

Tony 20 Chris 18
Tony squeaked by Chris as Selanne and Niniimaa notched a total of seven points for Tony on Tuesday. Chris went scoreless with Gratton not contributing a point to the Flyers’ seven goal outburst and Islanders Reichel and Smolinski also going scoreless. Reichel scored half of Chris’ points for the week with 3 goals and 3 assists.

Mike 43 Rich 28
Forsberg tallied 10 points and Modano 8 as Mike knocked Rich to 0-3. Rich is being hurt by the continued absences of Federov and Tverdovsky, as well as Messier, who has a mere two goals and one assist, certainly not what the Canucks expected for $20 million. 

Rick 30 Charlie 28
Surprisingly these teams were both 0-2 going into this game. They both look pretty decent. Rick was led by Palffy’s 11 points in his breakout week. Bure’s hat trick Tuesday wasn’t quite enough for Charlie as Rick holds on for the win.  

Bill 26 Tom 23
The battle for first in the Dion division between the two 2-0 teams goes to Bill.

Just one week left in the first period. Mike leads Bill and me by 2 points, with Brett seven back. Interestingly enough, the top three teams each made a relatively stupid move last week (with the benefit of hindsight). I put in Zubrus and benched Roberts. Zubrus sat out the whole week after reinjuring his hand last Monday and Roberts had two assists. Mike benched Schneider for Ohlund. Net loss three points as Schneider had five assists. Bill decided not to activate Alfredsson, who had something like three goals and two assists for the week. In Bill’s defense, he may not have known who to bench, but that issue has been resolved with Kovalev in Colin Campbell’s doghouse.

Random new and notes from around the NHL and EFHL.

• The leading scorer among forwards is Eric Lindros (me) with 25 points. Mike Modano (Mike) is second with 23 points.
• The leading scorer among defensemen is Niklas Lidstrom (Brett) with 18 points.
• What is going on the Penguins? Who would have thought they would be unbeaten five games into their mammonth eight game road trip. Not only that, but they have given up only five goals in those five games.
• Hot trade rumors surround the pathetic Blackhawks and Hurricanes, as well as the Canadians. EFHL players that could be moved are Sanderson, Damphousse, and Zhamnov, as well as Chris’ favorite "breakout" player, Daze.
• Major disappointments so far: Damphousse (me) 2 goals, 1 assist, 5 points; Sundin (Bill) 1-0-2; Nolan (Chris) 0-4-4; Messier (Rich) 2-1-5; Suter (Tom) 0-1-1; Svehla (Rick) 0-1-1. At some point in the not-to-distant future, I will take a look at the surprise and disappointments for each team.

 That’s a wrap for this week. See you later.