There is a lot of stuff to cover in this final newsletter, but I will try to keep it to a reasonable length. First the EFHL finals. Bill beat Tony 54-51 and in the process won second place points and also nipped Tony for the period by a single point. Bill was led by Leclair with 16 points while Tony was missing Selanne for the last 3 or 4 Ducks games. Rick, of course, wins total points again, although Bill won the most money this season. Here is the money summary.

Grant	- $100
Chris	- 100
Mike	- 100
Tony	+ 60	1 period (70), Finals loser (50), Division title (40)
Brett	- 100
Charlie	- 100
Bill	+ 400	3 periods (210), Finals winner (150), 2nd place points (100), Division title (40)
Rich	- 100
Tom	- 100
Rick	+ 240	Points champion (200), 2 periods (140)

Here is really brief review of the season by team, just in case you want to relive it.

Grant - Another frustrating season. At least last season, when I finished last in points, I still managed to get some money back by sneaking into the finals. This season I was really close in a couple of periods and close in the points battle for most of the season and end up with nothing to show for it. Injuries suck.

Chris - Talk about frustrating. Chris' was self-inflicted with Kariya and some other questionable picks. To see how pathetic his season was, a recent conversation Chris and I had went something like this, as he tried to manuveur out of last place in the last week of the season.

Chris: "I wanted to make a move for Koivu last Wednesday, but I fell asleep. Who should I pick up?"
Me: "I don't know." Then, after remembering his hat trick the previous night I said, "Gary Roberts is playing well. But you may want to check to schedule for the last few days."
Chris: "Where can I get the schedule?'
Me: "On the Internet. Or you can probably get it in the newspaper."
Chris: "OK. I'll let you know what I want to do."

Pretty sad. End result: He picked up Roberts, who I don't think even played, but still finished ninth.

Mike - When you steal a player like Modano, it helps if he can stay healthy. Other picks just didn't work out, such as Sanderson and Smyth. And Mogilny, when not holding out, frequently had minor injuries that cost him games.

Tony - He had a strong season, but the end truly sucked. Selanne's missed games may have cost him $170. Ouch!

Brett - What could have been. Brett dropped Allison and Brind'amour early and traded Jagr (but did get Nieuwendyk in return). He missed the playoffs by ½ game for the second straight year.

Charlie - Question: Who was the EFHL scoring leader? Answer: Pavel Bure. I found that a little surprising. Charlie was one of two teams with three 100 point players, including Bure and Bondra in the top six EFHL scoring. But he only managed a fifth place finish.

Bill - Luck is one way to describe his winning a lot of money. He won three periods by a total of 7 points combined. And of course he won the EFHL final by three points. Still a pretty impressive rookie season.

Rich and Tom - Nobody voted for zero moves in the questionnaire. Tom may have won the league if nobody were allowed any moves.

Rick - The odds against him or anybody else winning three straight points championships were 720:1, assuming every team has an equal shot each year, which they obviously don't. Midway through the season, it surely looked like his reign was over. Oh well, we will just all have to try again next year.

Back by popular demand is the draft analysis. Yeah, right, but here it is anyway. If you don't remember it from last time (around December), I ranked all players drafted (except those playing in fewer than half the games) based on EFHL points per game. This ranking is subtracted from the position that the player was chosen (for forwards and defensemen) in the draft to get that player's value. For example, I drafted Gary Roberts, who was the 59^th forward selected. His EFHL points per game rank was 32^nd, giving him a rating of +27. This does not take into consideration time missed for injuries. And consider that guys picked near the beginning of the draft can be a high negative player but can only be a very low positive player. Plus bad picks can be quickly atoned for with good free agent acquisitions. But it still is interesting because it shows who the sleeper and bust picks were this season.

	Forwards						Defensemen
	Total	Best pick		Worst pick			Total	Best pick		Worst pick
Bill	+ 13	Alfredsson	+ 21	Nolan	- 30		+ 30	MacInnis	+ 16	Berard	- 2
Brett	+ 39	Brind'amour	+ 44	Roenick	- 20		+ 2	McGillis	+ 13	Pronger	- 13
Charlie	+ 10	Linden	+ 14	Deadmarsh	- 17		+ 6	Zhitnik	+ 33	Desjardins	- 18
Chris	- 25	Daze	+ 13	Koivu	- 20		- 19	Cote	+ 12	Karpotsev	- 14
Grant	+ 58	Roberts	+ 27	Lindros	- 7		+ 9	Murphy	+ 9	D. Mironov	- 7
Mike	+ 32	Modano	+ 9	Sanderson	- 32		+ 20	Zubov	+ 10	Ohlund	- 4
Rich	- 5	Stumpel	+ 31	Messier	- 31		+ 11	Numminen	+ 27	Coffey	- 23
Rick	+ 21	Nieuwendyk	+ 39	Shanahan	- 21		- 2	Blake	+ 34	Chelios	- 22
Tom	+ 23	Turgeon	+ 17	Renberg	- 8		- 15	Suter	+ 6	Fetisov	- 19
Tony	+ 22	Friesen	+ 40	Gelinas	- 24		- 8	Niedermayer	+ 23	Lumme	- 17

 It is interesting to note that four of the best forward picks were dropped by their original teams. I guess sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a little patience.

Finally, and most important (unless you won money), here is a summary of the questionnaire results so you can start thinking about next season. If something is not covered here, you can assume that nobody really had any varying opinions on the issue.

• Money - 6 out of 8 preferred to keep the money the same ($100). So, at least for next season it will stay at $100.
• Point scoring or rotisserie - This was close (5-3) in favor of the current system, so this won't be changing any time soon either.
• Goalies - Of those who voted on this issue, 4 of 6 were in favor of adding goalies (including my no vote), some more than others considering the threats that I received if we don't add them. So it looks like a done deal for goalies next season. Based on your responses to how goalies should be included, here is what we will probably end up with.

Roster sizes - Everyone was satisfied with having 6 active forwards and 4 defensemen. There were differences in opinion on the number of reserves. Three liked the current situation (one reserve forward and one reserve defenseman). One voted for no reserves. The other votes were generally in favor of increasing the number of reserves, especially forwards. My recommendation is to allow an extra reserve forward (two total) and leave it at one reserve defenseman. This would increase the importance of the draft (or auction) and would shrink the available pool of free agents, which sometimes seems too large. This can be voted on right before the draft.

• Moves - All kinds of different responses on this one. A couple of you mentioned paying for moves. This may be the ideal situation, but is a pain to administrate. I think the jury is still out on this one. The choices could be among the following: 15 moves, 20 moves, 10 moves + unlimited moves for injured players, etc. We may not decide on this until the draft. One point brought up (and actually a rule in a prior season) is that dropped players should not be available until the week after the move appears in the weekly stats. This is fine and can also be decided at the draft.
• Auction - It looks like an auction will happen for next year. The vote was 6-2 in favor. I think it will be a blast. It will take longer than a conventional draft, so we will have to get started earlier than in the past, maybe at 5 or 6 PM. I think I saw somewhere that the season starts the weekend of October 10. This means that the draft will either be the weekend of October 3 or maybe September 26. I will put the date and time in the summer newsletter sometime in August. If you know of any conflicts you may have with either of those weekends, let me know.

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