Rambling about Kucherov's injury, Fabbri, Bernier, some deals I made in my leagues – and more.

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As what usually happens with teams who make the playoffs for a decade straight, the prospect cupboards are pretty empty for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Now that Derrick Pouliot and Brian Dumoulin are NHLers, that pretty cleaned out the system. Beyond Daniel Sprong, the pickings are slim. What this means is that a mediocre prospect will see a lopsided amount of opportunities and at times those opportunities will be good ones. Whereas a rebuilding team that is in its third year of the rebuild will have a dozen very good prospects, some of whom are elite, to choose from. In those systems, the aforementioned mediocre prospect wouldn’t even get a sniff of a chance. Do you think Tom Kuhnhackl ever gets into a game with most of the other teams? Even the Leafs wouldn’t have room for him! But the Penguins have plenty of room for Kuhnhackl, Dominik Simon and Conor Sheary. All three of them are mediocre prospects with modest upsides but all three of them are in the lineup of a likely playoff team and they combined for five points on Sunday. Simon tallied his first NHL assist in his first career game. How they do next year will depend on what the Penguins do in the offseason. If the team loads up on proven forwards, they won’t get a sniff. If the team decides to keep the spots open for them, then they have a chance. Any one of these three could get a prime opportunity on a key line – but any one of them could wind up buried in the AHL.

Kuhnhackl is a fourth-round pick who has progressed very slowly, but steadily. He’s on the cusp of becoming a 60-point player in the AHL next season at the age of 24. Could a player like that be turned into someone fantasy relevant?  Sheary was an undrafted college star that the Penguins signed in 2014. He’s taken the AHL by storm with 81 points in 90 career games. Simon was a fifth-round pick and the youngest of the three (21). He’s the one who intrigues me the most here, but I wouldn’t waste a high pick on any of them in my deep leagues.

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In 30 of his 45 games with the Oilers, Justin Schultz had either zero shots on goal or one shot on goal. In four games with the Penguins and limited ice time he has at least two shots on goal in each of them.

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Derek Stepan has points in five straight and seven of his last eight. He’s playing with Chris Kreider and Mats Zuccarello and to me those are the best two wingers he can play with (yes over Rick Nash).

Speaking of Nash, he’s back and he’s pointless in two games. His return broke up the Staal-berg line (Oscar Lindberg – Eric Staal – Viktor Stalberg). Imagine that, Eric Staal and Rick Nash on the same line together and it’s the third line.

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I was just thinking about how I would troll Stamkos owners for his shitty season when he ruined it by going out and posting three points. I was going to make a snide remark like “With a hot finish, he has a shot at 60 points!” But now it seems likely that he tops 65 points so the taunt isn’t as funny.

Nikita Kucherov left the game after this sucker punch from Dalton Prout (thanks Puck Daddy for grabbing this angle, as the other angles available didn’t show this very well):

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I thought this article was well-researched and should be read by hockey fans and execs everywhere. Yes, its three months old but I just read it. Sean McIndoe goes year-by-year to pull quotes about the NHL’s lack of scoring, what was done, and how it impacted things. Really drills the point home about scoring dropping since 1993 – we go batshit crazy with joy if scoring sneaks up to 5.5 goals per game…but back in 1994 they were going crazy with angst that it had fallen below 6.5 goals per game. Today we’d take that in a heartbeat.

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Robby Fabbri has seven points in his last six games and his PP ice time is starting to eke upwards. All signs point to finishing the season with a bang. He’s been playing Stastny and Brouwer this quarter.

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This Dennis Wideman fiasco is exposing the arbitrator as a coward. Strong words, I know. But here is the bottom line – he either hit the linesman on purpose or he didn’t. You can’t be half-pregnant. If he did it, then he needs at least 20 games. If he didn’t do it, then he deserves zero games. A 10-game suspension has no place here. Splitting the difference in punishment between the two possible explanations is cowardly. Pick one, face the backlash, and stick to it. But…this outcome was so predictable. I think I called it back when 20 games was handed out. Not sure though, and too lazy to try to dig it up. Take another look at the act:

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The weekly 20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts from yesterday are here. Love that weekly piece…

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Uh oh…

Are we going to see Keith Kinkaid, Mike Smith and Jonathan Bernier all record shutouts in the same week? Prepare for the rapture…

— Stephen Laidlaw (@SteveLaidlaw) March 14, 2016

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That’s about all that can be said about the Leafs’ game. Jonathan Bernier is in danger of losing his standing as an NHL goaltender and he went out and got a shutout. He’ll need a couple more of those if he wants to pad his stats enough to make them just “below average” instead of the current “horrible”.

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Just a reminder, in case you didn’t believe me last week – Kris Russell is a solid offensive defenseman when the “usual” offensive defenseman for the team is injured. So with Klingberg out (should be back at some point this week), Russell will continue to do well.

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I noted last Wednesday that it was my final trade deadline of my three leagues I did three deals. It’s a Keep 12 and my 12 keepers are – Brassard, Fabbri, Benn, Ovechkin, Barrie, Suter, Yandle, Burakovsky, Carlson, Bishop, Talbot and Quick. None of my player moves involved keepers and I’m looking good for draft picks (managed to hang onto nine picks in the first eight rounds). I’m in third and pretty far behind, so just trying to increase my GR (games remaining) and bring in non-keepers who are hot right now.

Deal 1

Out – Jordan Staal, Erik Johnson, Namestnikov, Pulock, 9^th round pick

In – Ribeiro, Kesler, Hutton

I increased the man games by five (Carolina has 13 games left, Anaheim has 15, Colorado 12, Vancouver 15). The players I moved out were cold, I brought in reasonably hot players.

Deal 2

Traded a pick upgrade (gave 6^th rounder, got 13^th rounder) to acquire Brock Nelson. He filled the spot left by my adding Pulock in the last deal. It gave me a winger on a team (Islanders) with 16 games left. The only team with 16 games left. Nelson is far from hot but with that many games left he could help. I can keep him on my bench in case I need him.

Deal 3

Out – Benoit Pouliot, Palmieri, and that 13^th rounder I acquired above

In – Goligoski, Craig Smith

First of all I’m happy that I get to leave September’s 13-round draft after the eighth round. Those things can really drag on so lately I’ve been shedding my later picks! Since Pouliot and Palmieri are not keepers (I would have considered them, but they were on the outside looking in), I moved them for immediate help. I’m sure you know just how hot Smith and Goligoski have been lately.

So let the comeback begin? We’ll see. I’m 73 points back and generally a good week is when I gain 15. So yes, I’ll have to have four amazing weeks. Bring it on!