Every Sunday during the regular season, we’ll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week’s “Daily Ramblings.”
1. I said in my last Finding Fantasy Value column for Sportsnet that the Montreal Canadiens were on the verge of a breakout offensively. On Saturday they scored five goals for the second time this week, with Phillip Danault leading the offence with two goals and two assists. If you didn’t think to add Danault, you can’t be blamed, since he had been held without a goal since opening night. But the recent line shuffling in Montreal has Danault centering Max Pacioretty, so there could be more value to be had at least in the short term.
2. Josh Bailey has been moved back up to the top line for the Islanders with John Tavares and Anders Lee, while Jordan Eberle moved to the second line. This isn’t all that surprising. Lee-Tavares-Bailey was a great line last year and they seem to have a lot of chemistry together. That allows Eberle and Mathew Barzal to play together in easier matchups and hopefully the team can get more out of their sniping winger.
3. Worried about Eberle? Don’t be. Eberle scored his first two goals of the season Saturday. Add in his assist from that game and he now has nine points in 11 games as an Islander. The guy that was traded for Eberle (Ryan Strome) is already the subject of trade rumors, according to Nick Kypreos.
I didn’t think the Oilers needed to trade Eberle, and so far it doesn’t look like a wise decision for Oilers if you consider the return (three points in 10 games for Strome). Trades do take much longer than 11 games to evaluate but so far the Islanders appear to have won this deal.
4. One player that I’m following closely right now is Tim Heed, who has a goal and three assists in eight games while being used on the Sharks’ first-unit power play. This is a great spot for the hard-shooting Heed, although having two right-handed shots on the same power-play unit might not be the long-term plan for the Sharks.
Heed is also in the lineup because of Paul Martin’s ankle injury, so either Heed or Joakim Ryan could be the odd man out once Martin returns. Still, there’s great fantasy upside with Heed, who should be owned in more than 2 percent of Yahoo leagues.
5. Anaheim was starting to get healthy with the returns of Ryan Getzlaf and Hampus Lindholm, and then this came down on Friday afternoon: Cam Fowler’s timeline on knee injury is four-to-eight weeks from October 20.
You’ll remember he took an awkward spill in their game against Montreal last Friday and has been out since. Looks like they may have to wait as long as Christmas to be at full strength on the blue line. With Lindholm out, Fowler had been playing over 26 minutes a game on the backend. That would have likely declined as the team got their pieces back but that’s still a huge gap to fill.
As far as fantasy hockey is concerned, owners likely drafted the 25-year old as a third defenceman, so not an insignificant part of their team. The same-team replacement to make in the meantime would be Brandon Montour. He’s running the top power-play unit and is constantly playing 22 minutes a night.
6. Number one reason I didn’t want John Gibson on my team; the Ducks’ banged up roster. Gibson is probably a top-10 goalie but cannot be relied upon skating behind what amounts to half an AHL team. The Ducks got lit up for eight goals Thursday, with Gibson on the hook for six of them, and another four on Saturday versus the Lightning. Wait this situation out a little longer, as I don’t think this is quite rock bottom for Gibson owners. Another couple of weeks of poor play and you could steal him away with a predatory offer.
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7. Mikhail Sergachev is off to the races with 10 points in 12 games. I am all for jumping on board, just don’t expect Sergachev to be a full-season solution. His minutes should climb but he’s currently averaging 13:20 per game. It’s near impossible to remain relevant as a defenceman averaging even 16 minutes of ice time, let alone less.
Consider Brady Skjei, who scored 39 points in 80 games averaging 17:28 as a rookie for the Rangers. He was probably the best low-minute producer among defencemen and he was borderline fantasy relevant. Now, he was tied for 24th in scoring among defencemen but he also didn’t do enough for your fantasy team to be on your roster nightly. Skjei had more games where he did nothing for you than he had productive nights. I’d rather that guy sit on another roster in head-to-head or rotisserie settings.
I smell a similar outcome for Sergachev. He already has a pile of points banked so it would be hard for him to completely disappear from the scoring ranks but if he finishes with 40 points that leaves him with only 30 the rest of the way. That drops him below the 0.5-points-per-game level so Sergachev would be ineffective in over half of the remaining games. Again, that’s not a guy you want on your roster every night.
Absolutely scoop Sergachev up if you have lots of moves and nightly lineup settings. You can ride this hot streak, especially as everything that Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov touches turns to gold. Just don’t marry yourself to Sergachev. There will be other options who can serve you better later on.
8. Sean Couturier is off to a ludicrous start: 13 points in 11 games. He has reinvigorated the top line with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek, both of whom drown at five-on-five last season. We know Giroux and Voracek are established fantasy assets but what to make of Couturier?
Well, Couturier is probably that line’s best player but also its weakest fantasy asset. Couturier does not skate on the top power-play unit and has been a non-factor in that phase of the game throughout his career. His career high is eight PPP and I don’t feel comfortable pegging him for more than five. While he is an excellent penalty killer, we can’t reliably expect any shorthanded scoring – it is just too random.
Couturier almost certainly is headed for a career season but I feel comfortable betting against him hitting that 70-point maximum. It also needs to be pointed out that Couturier has missed 16 and 19 games in the past two seasons respectively.
9. Though he leads the Stars in individual shot attempts per minute – leading to more shots per game than last season despite much less ice time – Jason Spezza is not earning more minutes for himself.
Therein lies the problem. If Spezza is off the top power play and earning less than 10 minutes a game at five-on-five, there is almost no chance he is fantasy-relevant this year. Unless injuries hit, it doesn’t appear that will happen. Things aren’t looking good for Spezza believers.
10. This might be something that could be changing every few games all year but over the last few seasons, the trio of Joonas Donskoi, Joe Thornton, and Joe Pavelski has been utterly dominant at five-on-five (even more so than the Joes usually are). Hopefully, the 25-year old Donskoi gets an extended look because it seems like a situation where everyone would benefit.
11. Isles assign Josh Ho-Sang to Bridgeport: This obviously sucks for his dynasty and keeper owners. I’m sure there were a lot of people out there hoping (and rightly so) that this would be his breakout year, possibly playing second-line minutes and secondary power-play time. Now he might not even get in a full season.
Ho-Sang has 14 points in 27 career NHL games, including four points in six games this year playing third-line minutes.
12. Calvin Pickard went through waivers … and Antti Niemi gets claimed? Florida is short a goalie and Antti “The Pylon” Niemi is the answer when they could have had Pickard? Arizona’s Louis Domingue is getting shelled badly and the Coyotes have no other options … but Pickard wasn’t worth a grab as insurance?
The Maple Leafs may never need to use Pickard this year but smart management is preparing for such a situation. If Frederik Andersen gets injured, Toronto would be screwed. The way two other teams are right now. Poor Domingue. In the short-term, he’s shown that he can flourish under Dave Tippett’s system but clearly the Rick Tocchet system isn’t goalie friendly.
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13. I want to say that I’m not buying Adrian Kempe. After all, a player who can barely achieve a point every two AHL games after two seasons can hardly expect to do better than that in the NHL. But with the added ice time thanks to the Jeff Carter injury, I have to buy in. Nine points in his last six games. He’s a highly-touted prospect, I could just never figure out why. Now I’m seeing it. Just needs some skill around him.
14. I’m not buying Will Butcher. Well, yes, I’m sold on him being a legit PP guy and huge fantasy asset but he’s not the next Erik Karlsson or even Shayne Gostisbehere. At this early stage, I’d carefully consider him a potential 50-point guy.
15. I’m not buying Mike Green. This isn’t due to what fancy stats say (they only point to just a bit of good luck but otherwise he’s earned his production). It’s due to facing weaker defensive teams and his early-season four-point first game inflating his number right now. He’ll slow and also have his inevitable injury. Still looks like a great rebound season for him but just not to this extent.
16. The Oilers are a playoff team and a great one. So they’ll get going at some point and when they do, all of their players will go nutty on the scoreboard. Let’s just hope this suffering won’t be as prolonged as the Penguins a couple of years ago. Remember, the Pens fired Mike Johnston on Dec. 12, 2015. Then the players really took off. As long as the Oilers don’t take until mid-December, they will get it together and some of their players right now are “buy-low” candidates. I’m talking about Oscar Klefbom, Milan Lucic, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Cam Talbot, and even Ryan Strome.
17. It might, however, be prudent to see what Nick Foligno can fetch in a trade. It’s been a good start to the year, production-wise, for Foligno, as he has three goals and eight points in 11 games. This start won’t continue, though, and maybe you can sell a league mate on the idea that he’ll repeat his 2014-15 season.
The issue is two-fold: he’s not shooting, and he’s among league leaders in secondary assist rate. Now, people might have Foligno on their roster, and think that if he can get 20 goals, 50 points, and 150 hits, they’re satisfied with that. It’s not like he had a heavy price on draft day, anyway. Even if you think he can be a 50-point player, maybe you can sell him on being a 60- or 70-point player. Maybe your league mates are smart cookies and you can’t sell him as such but there’s no harm in asking.
18. Hold on to Anze Kopitar. I know when a player is off to a hot start, the common practice is to “sell high” and get a superior player back in a trade. If you can do that with Kopitar, fine, but it better be a clearly superior player because there’s good reason to think he stays productive all year.
19. Vegas is going to be without goaltender Malcolm Subban for about a month due to a lower-body injury. In the meantime, 23-year old Oscar Dansk is in line for some starts.
This is unfortunate for Subban as he had a very strong start to his Golden Knights career, posting a .959 save percentage in his three contests. It’s fortunate in the sense that he avoided any long-term injury but he may be relegated to backup duties by the time he returns should Marc-Andre Fleury prove himself healthy over the next three or four weeks.
20. Sven Baertschi now has 22 goals in his last 78 games for the Canucks. After his career was seemingly DOA in Calgary, he’s appeared to have righted the ship in Vancouver.
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