Heatley, Rinne, the Sharks getting younger, and more

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So Bruce Boudreau wants to play Dany Heatley with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry next season, making him a fairly valuable commodity to have on your roster. Dustin Penner had success there last year posting 13 goals in 49 games and then Patrick Maroon took advantage of ice time with the duo later in the season. 

I’d expect Heatley to have similar success and he could be in for a 25-30 goal season. The question is how early should you draft him in a one-year league? Heatley probably falls into the category of a sleeper at this point, but with news like this he is going to start to get talked about more and more and he’s likely going to vault up many people’s draft board. 

As an example, for those of you into fantasy football, Jay Cutler was in a similar position. Earlier in the summer he was looking like a nice sleeper that you could snag outside of the quarterback elites like Rodgers, Manning, and Brees, but as we got closer to draft time more and more buzz started to generate about the numbers Cutler could put up throwing to Brandon Marshall and an emerging Alshon Jeffery, he was going above his initial ADP (average draft position).

Something tells me if you want Heatley this year you are probably going to have to draft him a round or two ahead of where he should probably be taken, because come late September he’s going to be on everybody’s sleeper list. It’s getting harder and harder to find real sleepers these days with all the information available. 

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Speaking of where players will be taken in drafts, where exactly does Pekka Rinne land? He might be an interesting one to look at because there should be some uncertainty in Nashville this season. 

With Barry Trotz and his goalie friendly system no longer with the Preds, does that hurt Rinne at all? Also keep in mind he’s going to be coming off the hip issue that cost him most of 2013-14. 

Rinne played 43-of-48 games in the lockout shortened season and 73-of-82 the year before that, but I have a hard time believing he stays on that pace given last year’s injury and his age. Carter Hutton also demonstrated himself to be serviceable at times last year, which might make Nashville more apt to give Rinne an extra night off here and there.