Give Me Some Skin

The Bear Skins are back for another exciting season of GDHL action! Here's a preview of how the team shapes up this year:



Returning Players:

Returning from last years team are forwards Pavel Datsyuk, Marc Savard, Zach Parise, Henrik Sedin, Ray Whitney, Cory Stillman, Sergei Samsonov, Jiri Hudler, David Krejci; defensemen Zdeno Chara, Joni Pitkanen, Dennis Wideman, Paul Mara, Erik Johnson; and goalies Roberto Luongo and Rick DiPietro

New Faces:

New to the team this year are forwards Maxim Afinogenov, Jordan Staal, Erik Cole, Nigel Dawes, Brooks Laich, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Dave Bolland and Nikita Filatov; defensemen Scott Niedermayer, Marc Staal and Cam Barker; goalie Chris Mason

Keys To Victory:

For the Bear Skins to be successful this season, the following must happen:

1) Veterans Rebound - Before the draft this year, Martin St. Louis was traded to acquire 3 picks (Ray Whitney, Erik Johnson and a 2009 pick). With the unfortunate loss of Erik Johnson for the year due to a freak golf carting accident, the team needs to replace the production from these two key players. Fortunately, the Bear Skins will have a full year from Scott Niedermayer whose production should be better than last season when he played only half a season. Pitkanen's production should also be better since he was traded to Carolina. The loss of St. Louis should be offset if players like Afinogenov, Jordan Staal and Cole rebound after an offyear.

2) Young player improvement - Players such as Parise, Hudler, Dawes, Laich, Marc Staal and Wideman need to improve upon the totals they had last year. Rookies such as Bolland, Barker and Filatov need to stay out of the minors and offer much needed injury relief when the veterans go down with injuries.

3) Health in Goal - For the past two seasons, Dipietro has gone down with injury for the last two months of the season. For the Bear Skins to have a chance at winning it all this year, both #1 goalies must remain healthy.

Latest Skin Causing Irritation

This week the Bear Skins announced the acquisition of Montreal Canadiens defenseman Patrice Brisebois. The signing was necessary due to the rash of injuries to the Skins' defensemen.

The signing was not without conflict though. Many in the locker room openly grumbled about the signing. One Bruins player, who asked to remain anonymous, was quoted as saying, "So, we are signing HABS now?? What is this team coming to? I never thought I'd live to see the day that GM MacCormack would stoop so low! I guess we'll be signing Randy Jones, Darcy Tucker and Ulf Sammuelsson next??"

The attitude toward Brisebois quickly changed in his second game with the team when he received a 10 minute miscounduct for 3 pool points. "Now THAT is Bruin hockey!" the anonymous source declared.

The Captain Has Come Home

The Bear Skins have a new captain. The team announced yesterday they had acquired big defenseman Zdeno Chara from the rebuilding Shamrocks. "I am so happy to be on the Bear Rugs" he said. "I knew the team wanted me for over a year, so it is no big surprise."

At the press conference, GM Mike MacCormack stated, "Chara immediately becomes our best defenseman. And with Pitty and BB out for an extended period, this addition will help keep us competitive until they return."

Chara was named Captain of the Bear Rugs, excuse me, the Bear Skins.

The Bear Skins are Born

In a press release today, the GDC Bruins announced that they are changing their name to the "Bear Skins".

In an interview, GM MacCormack explained, "There are many reasons for our name change, first and foremost, we want to start a winning tradition here at GDC. Last year's second place finish in the GDHL is just not good enough. We in the front office realized that we need to be less reliant on one team. You know what killed our team last year? Our main supplier of talent, the Boston Bruins, were shutout in half of their last 10 games. We had so many Bruins on board we could not recover from that. This year we have players from 19 different NHL clubs. That should insolate us from prolonged slumps by any one team."

MacCormack did acknowledge that he will not totally abandon the Bruins. "The Bear Skins will always have Boston Bruins on their roster. That is not going to change. We currently have what we consider to be 5 of the best Bruins." he added, "We'd also love to get big dman Chara, but GM Shannon is being very stubborn in his dealings with us. "

The team is planning a series of advertisements to promote its new name which will feature hairless bears dancing to music by the Bare Naked Ladies.

GDHL: Draft Movers and Shakers

Here is an analysis of the biggest movers in the draft this year. The list contains all the players that were drafted in our 2006 draft, the round they were drafted in in 2006 and 2007 and how far they moved up or down. For comparison purposes, round 1 of this year's draft is considered round 11, round 2 is 12, etc. Free agency is listed as round 21. Enjoy!

Player/Pos/2006 Round/2007 Round/Mov

D Roy F 20 12 8
J. Blake F 20 13 7
Brunette F 18 12 6
M.A. Bergeron D 19 13 6
Sykora F 17 13 4
Weight F 19 15 4
Guerin F 20 16 4
Kunitz F 16 13 3
Perry F 17 14 3
Commodore D 20 17 3
S. Koivu F 13 11 2
Ribeiro F 16 14 2
Corvo D 19 17 2
Bryzgalov G 20 18 2
Tkachuk F 13 12 1
Erat F 14 13 1
Morris D 14 13 1
Hartnell F 15 14 1
Leopold D 18 17 1
Wolski F 18 17 1
Huselius F 14 14 0
JP Dumont F 15 15 0
Preissing D 15 15 0
Zubrus F 15 15 0
J. Carter F 16 16 0
Upshall F 17 17 0
Higgins F 19 19 0
Khabibulin G 12 13 -1
Avery F 13 14 -1
Tucker F 13 14 -1
Langenbrunner F 16 17 -1
Holmstrom F 18 19 -1
Brewer D 19 20 -1
Latendresse F 19 20 -1
Ozolinsh D 20 21 -1
Stajan F 20 21 -1
Brule F 20 21 -1
Brind'amour F 9 11 -2
Langkow F 9 11 -2
G. Murray F 12 14 -2
Zhitnik D 12 14 -2
Samsonov F 13 15 -2
Jokinen F 14 16 -2
Hecht F 16 18 -2
Lang F 16 18 -2
Reinprecht F 17 19 -2
Aranson F 19 21 -2
Bondra F 19 21 -2
M. Richards F 19 21 -2
Parrish F 19 21 -2
Sheppard F 19 21 -2
Cammalleri F 8 11 -3
Jordan Staal F 8 11 -3
Schneider D 8 11 -3
Seabrook D 12 15 -3
Prospal F 13 16 -3
Eminger D 18 21 -3
Esche G 18 21 -3
Ladd F 18 21 -3
Pettinger F 18 21 -3
Steen F 18 21 -3
Walz F 18 21 -3
Justin Williams F 7 11 -4
Beauchemin D 11 15 -4
Knuble F 11 15 -4
Connolly F 13 17 -4
C. Neil F 17 21 -4
F. Modin F 17 21 -4
Kronwall D 17 21 -4
Lehtinen F 17 21 -4
Spacek D 17 21 -4
Kovalev F 7 12 -5
Ryder F 9 14 -5
K. Ballard D 10 15 -5
Samuelsson F 15 20 -5
Ruutu F 15 20 -5
Calder F 16 21 -5
K. Johnsson D 16 21 -5
Mike Van Ryn D 16 21 -5
Pisani F 16 21 -5
S. Federov F 16 21 -5
Forsberg F 5 11 -6
Hejduk F 5 11 -6
Morrow F 5 11 -6
Arnott F 6 12 -6
Doan F 6 12 -6
Satan F 12 18 -6
Armstrong F 15 21 -6
Bell F 15 21 -6
Regehr D 15 21 -6
Sutton D 15 21 -6
Selanne F 5 12 -7
S. Sullivan F 10 17 -7
Comrie F 11 18 -7
Sturm F 14 21 -7
A Ward D 14 21 -7
Desjardins D 14 21 -7
Modano F 7 15 -8
Lupul F 9 17 -8
Kubina D 11 19 -8
Boyes F 12 20 -8
Ekman F 13 21 -8
A. Carter F 13 21 -8
Kotalik F 13 21 -8
Bertuzzi F 4 13 -9
B. Jackman D 9 18 -9
Garon G 12 21 -9
Gerber G 12 21 -9
Horcoff F 6 16 -10
B. Morrison F 9 19 -10
Conroy F 11 21 -10
Hamhuis D 11 21 -10
Jason Williams F 11 21 -10
Witt D 11 21 -10
Yashin F 11 21 -10
Prucha F 10 21 -11
Theodore G 10 21 -11
Zherdev F 4 17 -13
Auld G 8 21 -13
Rucinsky F 8 21 -13
Stillman F 4 18 -14
Berard D 7 21 -14
Gratton F 7 21 -14
Svatos F 7 21 -14

Great Minds Think Alike

During the recent GDHL draft I created large list of players I wanted in the draft. Of course the list was much too large to be able to draft them all, but I did get a fair number of them. I also kept track of who took players off my list. Below is an analysis of the number of players each of you stole from me, and the average round in which you drafted them. Enjoy!

GM #Stolen/Average Round
Ryan 5/6.6

Mark 4/5.25

Ken 4/6.75

Trevor 4/6.75

Kevin 4/7
Victor 3/2.67

Ihor 3/4.34

Jordan 2/6.5

Paul 2/8.5

Adam 2/9

JW 1/9

GDHL: 2007 Draft Picks Round 10

GM Pick# Traded to Selection Team Position
Ken Kyswaty 109 Roberts PIT F
Adam Byrne 110 Weiss FLA F
JW Berarducci 111 Phillips OTT D
Ryan Tizzard 112 Latendresse MTL F
Trevor Shannon 113 Foster MIN D
Jordan Kreuger 114 Brown LA F
Mark Atkins 115 Samuelsson Det F
Paul Berlinguette 116 Ruutu T. CHI F
Ihor Triska 117 Boynton Pho D
Victor Khoo 118 Brewer STL D
Mike MacCormack 119 Boyes STL F
Kevin Kwasny 120 White ATL F