Geek of the Week advises you to consider Travis Hamonic as the playoffs begin.

There are only a couple days until most head-to-head fantasy hockey leagues have their first playoff match, so I am going to try to help you find one more player for a push to a championship. I already took my own advice and added Jamie McGinn and Johnny Boychuk and they have rewarded me as of Saturday morning with 2G, 2A, 2 PPP, 16 SOG and 9 hits over only 5 total games played in my matchup this week.

One of the better ways to identify players whose value may be poised for a big jump is to find players whose situation has recently changed and try to determine how the player will be affected. Today I will take a deeper look at a player with a changing situation and rising value: Travis Hamonic.

Trying to determine how a players' changing role will affect his value can be a pretty tough task. Dobber and the team do a great job of breaking this down, particularly when it comes to trades. When Andrew Macdonald was traded from the Islanders, Travis Hamonic was identified as a player who will benefit, which was a key point to make because often the players affected the most by a trade are actually the players who didn't move. So if we agree that MacDonald being shipped out of town will help Hamonic's value, then how do we determine just how valuable he could be going forward? This is the part that could take a lot of work but with a tool like Fantasy Hockey Geek, it is actually quite easy.

I will always remember Hamonic's surge to fantasy relevance in 2010-11 when his unique stat line saw him accumulate 118 shots, 118 hits and 118 blocked shots which was pretty cool in and of itself but when you add the fact that he was playing at a 35 point pace – you had yourself a nice little player, who I considered to be a poor man's Brent Seabrook. The points have dried up a bit over the past two seasons though and Hamonic has again fallen off the radar of most GMs as evidenced by his 4% Yahoo! ownership rate. Let's take a look at how is faring this season. I used a keeper league that I am in which counts PIMs, as this will best demonstrate Hamonic's multi-cat value.

(XCHL – 14 team Yahoo! keeper league: G, A, +/-, SOG, PPP, PIM, SHP, Hits)

You can see above that Hamonic is coming in as just the 255th most valuable player in this league; a league which actually caters to his strengths. Hamonic is still hitting and putting up some PIMs, but his offensive numbers (shots, points, PPP) are all down significantly enough to make him borderline irrelevant. His role on the Island has changed in recent years since he is one of the only Islander rearguards who can actually play defense he has been in more of a shut-down role while the likes of Visnovsky and MacDonald have been given the benefit of the PP time. On the season, Hamonic is 5th on the Islanders in terms of PP TOI per game as a defenseman.

Things are changing in New York though; with MacDonald out of town and a playoff spot out of reach the Islanders have shuffled things up. Last Monday, Hamonic was second on the team in PP TOI with over 5:00 and in their most recent game and he rewarded the Islanders with 2 assists and his first PPP of the season. Friday night the Islanders didn't have any powerplays, but Hamonic led the team in total TOI. Clearly, Hamonic will be seeing some more prime ice time over the balance of the season, so how can we expect it to affect his value? Let's take a look at Hamonic's upside based on his best season the 2010-11 season I mentioned above:

In the 2010-11 season, Hamonic was much improved, as the 123rd most valuable player in this league and the 32nd most valuable defenseman which makes him very relevant already but when you consider that he accomplished this feat despite playing only 62 games, it becomes even more impressive. So how valuable would he have been if he had played all 82? Again I defer to FHG and the What-if tool. I entered Hamoic's prorated numbers and this is what it gave me:

If Hamonic had carried his 2010-11 pace, he would have been the 40th most valuable player in this league and the 8th most valuable defenseman, right near the aforementioned Seabrook! That's an incredible upside for a player who is currently only 4% owned.

Granted, the analysis I did above is a best case scenario for Hamonic: a league that is perfectly suited for his skills in a year where he is given big minutes by his team and assuming that he plays every single game. Obviously all of this won't always happen with Hamonic, but this provides a good guideline of just how high his ceiling is. His potential may not be this great in every league, but if you are measuring any combination of hits, PIMs, blocks and shots then Hamonic is definitely worth a look and you should run a what-if based on his 2010-11 pace to see just how much he could potentially help you.

Travis Hamonic is another great add who can help you over the balance of the season in a variety of categories. While the budding young talent on the Island will likely keep Hamonic from becoming the #1 offensive option on the backend he does have the ability to contribute and he will be given the opportunities to flash his skills over your team's playoff run. Pick him up now and reap the rewards! To find more guys like Hamonic who are poised to contribute, sign up to Fantasy Hockey Geek today!