October 15, 2014

Thomas Drance

2014-10-15

Fantasy hockey ramblings recapping last night’s games including Brock Nelson’s continued fantasy dominance…

The odd Wednesday stint for me today, as I make it up to Dobber who worked over the weekend to allow me to hit a friend’s wedding on Saturday night. If you’ve never had an early Thanksgiving feast as a ‘hangover recovery’ meal, I highly recommend it. To the games!

The New York Islanders used a dominant third period to defeat their cross town rivals, the New York Rangers, 6-2 on Tuesday night.

This is precisely the sort of game the Islanders haven’t won in recent years, but were able to on Tuesday thanks to a 40 save performance from prized offseason acquistion Jaroslav Halak.

The Islanders are now 3-0-0 and qualify as one of the NHL’s hottest teams, and 6-foot-3 23-year-old forward Brock Nelson is one of the league’s hottest players. The big American born forward has four goals and seven points in his first three games, scoring again on Tuesday.

Now before you rush to the waiver wire to pick up Nelson (actually, I’m sure you’ve already done that, and if you haven’t go do that now if he’s still available then come back and finish reading this), there are some troubling signs that his production is about to dry up. While Nelson has managed seven points in the first three games, he’s only shot the puck five times. Yes, four of those shots have been goals, but that’s not going to last.

On Tuesday, for example, Nelson peppered Henrik Lundqvist with just a single shot. It was a goal, but until his shot rate increases in a major way, he’s not going to sustain a top-end scoring rate.

Not that anyone really expects him too. For the moment Nelson has one of the cushiest jobs in hockey playing on the left flank of John Tavares and Kyle Okposo. Though he didn’t do anything peripheral and barely generated any shots on Tuesday, which is some cause for concern, he also logged over four minutes on the power play. If he keeps getting these sorts of prime opportunities, he’s obviously going to retain his fantasy value.

I positied in this space a couple of weeks ago that Islanders defender Johnny Boychuk wouldn’t see his fantasy value tick upward all that much following his trade from Boston to Long Island. That prediction is looking pretty good! (Nope).

There’s a couple of things worth noting with Boychuk, namely that he’s logging more power play ice time than he ever has in his career and has the sort of heavy shot where it’s possible he might go on a shooting percentage inflated goal run in a contract year (a la Jason Garrison). That said, his on-ice shooting percentage after three games is in the 30’s – yep the 30’s – so beware some regression.

In watching the game I was more impressed with Nick Leddy than with Boychuk, frankly, and continue to be higher on him as a fantasy asset.

I was looking through some of the All Three Zones data yesterday for a column I was writing, and in particular looked through how often defenseman from various teams were carrying the puck into the zone. Through January 19th of last season, Leddy was on a short list of defenders who managed a controlled entry for over 50 percent of their total entries (Leddy, Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Sami Vatanen and almost no one else).

Last night, he was skating through the neutral zone like a blue-liner version of Pavel Bure, and good things routinely happened when he did so. And remember: he’s just 23. He’s only getting started here.

Rick Nash scored both of New York’s goals and now has six through the first four games of the season. Alain Vigneault making his star players look good? No way…

Seriously though this is some delayed regression for Nash, who led all NHL players in even-strength shot rate last season and just wasn’t rewarded for it. The 30-year-old winger hasn’t scored 40 goals in a season since 2008-09, but with the start he’s on, I think it’s doable this year. That’s good news for the Rangers, who are going to need everything they can get from the top-end of their roster.

The Flyers lost another game in a shootout on Tuesday, falling 4-3 to the Anaheim Ducks. The Flyers’ problem so far this season has been goaltending, bet you’ve never heard that one before, and Steve Mason was permissive again on Tuesday, allowing three goals against on just 28 shots faced. I’m not a big believer in Mason’s abilities as a puck stopper, but even I’ll note that it’s obviously that the quality of the defensive play in front of him isn’t helping.

The Flyers fought back on Tuesday night, but were outshot and outscored at even-strength with the score tied. This club can score, but that defense is a huge issue. They’re pretty much Oilers East at this point, except with a winning tradition and enough institutional pride that even though the Flyers are likely going to lose a lot this season, it won’t be quite so embarrassing.

Wayne Simmonds, like Nelson and Nash, is tied for the league scoring lead with seven points in four games. More like Nash than like Nelson, I kind of think Simmonds is poised to sustain an extremely high level of performance fantasy-wise this season.

In particular, Simmonds’ shot rate (he’s taking nearly four shots per game) is sky-high, he generally shoots an elevated percentage, and he’s a fixture on a pretty dangerous Flyers power-play. If you grabbed Simmonds in the middle rounds and bet that he might sustain that nearly 14 percent shooting clip he managed last season – well done.

Among the weirdest lines of the night is Sami Vatanen who had a shot, a hit and nine blocks. So you’re happy if you play in a block league, and disappointed otherwise. Worth noting that he led all Ducks players in power-play ice time…

Matt Beleskey was third – behind only Vatanen and Ryan Getzlaf – in power play ice time for the Ducks. That probably won’t continue once Patrick Maroon returns from injury, but Beleskey – who scored a goal, took five shots, and threw eight hits last night – should have some short-term value if you need some games (and some hits) this week.

The Sharks and Capitals played in a wild one last night, with the Sharks coughing up a 3-0 lead (where have I heard this one before) before ultimately winning in a shootout.

Alexander Ovechkin did Ovechkin-like things taking eight shots, throwing five hits, scoring two goals and amassing 2 PPPs. I understand those who valued Steven Stamkos and Sidney Crosby above Ovechkin in fantasy drafts this season, but man, Ovechkin is still far and away the most complete multi-cat fantasy player in the game.

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John Scott scored a goal for the Sharks, which is an annual oddity of sorts. Probably worth noting that maybe if the Sharks had a 12th forward they felt comfortable actually playing for a regular shift (Scott logged just 6:36 on Tuesday), they may have been able to hold onto their commanding first period lead…

Tommy Wingels continued his excellent start to the season with a goal and an assist, four shots, and two hits. He went in the last round of my 16 team league and is looking like a very smart pick so far.

Brent Burns managed one assist, threw one hit and added just a single shot. Fantasy hockey and NHL hockey is just less fun when he’s not giving his battle cry and going hard at opposition defenseman on the forecheck.

I like Tyler Seguin as a dark horse to win the Art Ross Trophy and he launched his candidacy on Tuesday with a three goal night. I like the symmetry that Jamie Benn managed an assist on all three of Seguin’s goals, by the way, and the Stars captain also added a goal and four shots for good measure.

Kari Lehtonen played well on Tuesday, stopping 33 of 35 shots faced (and the goals that beat him were scrambly and not on him). If you saw Anders Lindback play against Nashville over the weekend though – or at any time during his NHL career, really – you know that the Stars’ goaltending depth could be better.

If I’m Jim Nill I’m looking to get out ahead of this, because with Lehtonen’s injury history and the parity out West, I don’t think the Stars can afford to start Lindback in 25+ games this season.

Nice to see Cam Atkinson, everyones favorite under the radar elite volume shooter, get the benefit of some bounces in the early going this year. Atkinson managed another assist on Tuesday, and more typically recorded five shots on goal.

The Buffalo Sabres won (so actually lost) their great early season tank battle against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes iced a third line that included Jay McClement, 22-year-old rookie Patrick Brown, and Brad Malone. This game didn’t deserve a winner and I can’t believe it was nationally broadcast in the United States.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are on a two game winning streak, and actually throttled the new luddites, the Colorado Avalanche, in a 3-2 overtime victory on Tuesday night. The Maple Leafs even outshot Colorado 40 to 24 and tookover a game they were trailing in a fashion they didn’t seem capable of last season. Positive signs in the centre of the hockey universe?

Don’t look now but Maple Leafs defenseman Stuart Percy was second among all Leafs defenders in ice time, and logged the second most power play ice time among Leafs blue-liners (behind only Cody Franson). He didn’t have a big fantasy evening, but he did contribute some peripherals with two shots and three hits.

UPCOMING GAMES

Nov 05 - 19:11	CAR	vs	PHI
Nov 05 - 19:11	MTL	vs	CGY
Nov 05 - 19:11	BUF	vs	OTT
Nov 05 - 19:11	TOR	vs	BOS
Nov 05 - 19:11	NYI	vs	PIT
Nov 05 - 20:11	MIN	vs	L.A
Nov 05 - 20:11	STL	vs	T.B
Nov 05 - 20:11	WPG	vs	UTA
Nov 05 - 21:11	COL	vs	SEA
Nov 05 - 22:11	ANA	vs	VAN
Nov 05 - 22:11	S.J	vs	CBJ