Looking at underrated players in the Western Conference…
Happy Thanksgiving Canada!
North of the border, hopefully everyone is enjoying a great day with family and friends. South of the border, well you can rub it in come November when you're huddled about watching NFL all Thursday. Following Christmas, Thanksgiving is my next favorite holiday tradition. Maybe that's because it coincides with the start of the NHL season, or maybe it's the turkey, ham and pumpkin pie combined with beautiful autumn weather. Regardless, it's been an enjoyable week and we have already been treated to our fill of game watching and stats tracking. Already this year so many things have become obvious.
Obviously Zach Parise is going to dominate Ovechkin this year, it's so obvious. Both have played two games and Parise's league leading 19 SOG makes Ovechkin's 14 SOG look microscopic.
Seriously, Parise is a SOG stud but we all know he's not coming close to Ovie – although Parise's value in this category is higher than expected. Last year Parise finished with 245 SOG in 67 games which prorated over a full season means 299 SOG. This is not even close to Ovechkin's 386 SOG in 78 games but 299 SOG would have placed Parise fourth in the league after Ovechkin, Sharp and Kessel.
Obviously Blake Wheeler is a certified Pierre McGuire PIM monster with 22 PIM in his first two games. Let's look for 800 plus PIM this year.
Seriously, Wheeler is reliable in this category finishing with 63 PIM last year, good enough for 103rd overall. After weeding out the waiver wire members, one can see how valuable Wheeler is here. Of the top 30 scorers, Wheeler (along with Corey Perry) was only one of two players from the West to finish with over 60 PIM.
Obviously these four guys have already proven their reliability this year. Ales Hemsky, Jason Spezza, Alexander Steen and Marian Gaborik have played in every game. We are going to get full seasons out of these unfairly labeled Band-Aid Boys. It's so obvious.
Seriously, yeah seriously I have nothing but will pray for 70 plus games for each of these guys as I have all of them showing up on at least one of my rosters in the six leagues I'm in…
| Random Tandems | |||
| Five on Four | |||
| Wild Expectations |
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UPCOMING GAMES
Starting Goalies
Top Skater Views
| Players | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| HENRY THRUN |
 TOR | |
| JEFF SKINNER |
 S.J | |
| JACKSON LACOMBE |
 ANA | |
| ISAAC HOWARD |
 EDM | |
| SETH JARVIS |
 CAR
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Top Goalie Profile Views
CGY
VAN
MIN
LINE COMBOS
| Frequency |
 DET Players
| |
|---|---|---|
| 21.9 | AUSTIN WATSON CRAIG SMITH TYLER MOTTE | |
| 21.3 | MARCO KASPER PATRICK KANE ALEX DEBRINCAT | |
| 17.2 | VLADIMIR TARASENKO MICHAEL RASMUSSEN J.T. COMPHER | |
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