October 18, 2014

steve laidlaw

2014-10-18

The latest fantasy hockey ramblings on Zetterberg’s huge night, shutouts for Luongo, Rinne and Miller and more…

I have to apologize if the ramblings are a bit distracted today. I've been rather busy helping out with a volleyball tournament. I was only able to catch the late games so most of the early games will be straight box score observations.

Let's start things off with what was likely the least consequential game of the night – Buffalo-Florida.

There just aren't a lot of players that you'd want to own on either of these teams. Sure enough they produced a 1-0 game, which is great for owners daring enough to gamble on the goaltending on either of these teams.

Roberto Luongo recorded the shutout and is starting to settle in after a couple of abysmal starts to open the year. I actually like Luongo as a depth goaltending option. He's still a quality goalie and he'll start a bunch of games. At the end of the year he'll finish with somewhere around 30 wins and league average stats. And if you can cherry-pick the right nights to keep Luongo on the bench he'll actually give you some really good averages. There are worse goalies to own.

Anyway, this was his first win of the season and it isn't exactly shocking that he needed a shutout to get it considering the team in front of him. I like a number of the players on this squad, they just don't have any finishers.

Nick Bjugstad has looked really good in my limited views of him so far. He fired off six SOG last night so he's buzzing the net. Only a matter of time for him.

Sean Bergenheim scored the lone Panthers goal. He fired five SOG in just 9:41 of ice time. That's efficient!

I'm intrigued by the number of power play minutes skated by Dmitri Kulikov. He skated 5:22 on the power play in this one, pairing with Brian Campbell on the top unit.

That top unit isn't very good because, again, no finishers but the opportunity is there for Kulikov. This is positive because he was frequently left to work with the second power play unit last season. Maybe we see some progress.

Unrelated to Kulikov's power play time, he notched his first assist (and point) of the season. I'm not ready to buy in because Campbell is still the top dog on this team and they simply aren't good at scoring but I am watching the situation closely.

The forwards on that top power play unit were Jussi Jokinen, Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau. There's a top of potential there, they've just got no finish (but do have plenty of Finnish!)

Nice game from Jonas Enroth. I'd love to see what he could do on a competitive team.

Sam Reinhart skated barely over seven minutes in this one. What's the point of even having him up? Is he learning anything skating these low minutes? He's half way to getting sent down anyhow.

The Blue Jackets keep on chugging in the early going. Good for them. Riddled with injuries and still finding a way to win. I'm going to have to catch one of their games start to finish sometime soon. They've got some kids skating in some big roles well ahead of schedule. I want to know if they are killing it or merely treading water.

One of those kids, Marko Dano, was held out of this one due to injury. He's day-to-day.

Alexander Wennberg is the other one I'm interested to see. He got over three minutes of power play time so clearly he is getting an opportunity.

I'm also intrigued by the kids on defense: David Savard and Tim Erixon. Erixon only skated 12 minutes last night but over four of them came on the power play. I'd presume that he gets scratched when Ryan Murray is ready to go.

Savard, meanwhile, also had over four minutes with the man advantage and skated well over 26 minutes on the night. Impressive stuff. The Blue Jackets really took their time with Savard and it might be paying dividends.

James Wisniewski is still the go-to guy on the Jackets' blueline from a scoring perspective, at least until he gets hurt. Serious Band-Aid Boy. Wisniewski fired off five SOG and notched his first point of the season.

Cam Atkinson is taking full advantage of the opportunity the injuries have provided him. He's skating on the top line and top power play unit and has points in all four games so far. He's also landing almost four SOG per game. This is excellent stuff. We also haven't heard much buzz about it so Atkinson might be flying under the radar here.

I wouldn't necessarily try to buy right now though. We won't know where Atkinson stands until the Jackets get healthy. Of course, Nathan Horton would have to get healthy to bump Atkinson off the top line, which is seriously in doubt. Still, this isn't exactly a team where a top scorer nets a point every game. Let's hope for 60 from Atkinson. If you can buy him cheaper than that then by all means, dive in.

How about Sergei Bobrovsky? I thought he might struggle to open the season with all these injuries. Kind of similar to how Henrik Lundqvist and Tuukka Rask have gotten off to slow starts or how he got off to a slow start last year. Bobrovsky is having none of it. He means business. Elite goaltender right from the get go. So much for trying to buy low on him in November.

Johnny Gaudreau was scratched by the Flames last night. You can take that one of two ways. Either you think that this combined with his scoreless few games to open the season means he is entirely unready for this league or you can view it as a smart tactical decision designed to give some perspective to a young player to try and coax a little more out of him.

The Flames are saying all the right things if you believe the latter:

"It's all about timing," the Calgary Flames head coach said prior to Friday's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. "Yes, there's value and I believe in it. But it's all about timing. Is it the right time? When we're dealing with young players, it's all about what's best in the long-run. What's best for them is what's best for the organization. We have quite a few and the beauty or the problem, we're starting to have depth … it creates competition. We will reward the ones that are performing the best."

I'm on board with that as well. Look, I wasn't buying the preseason hype. I didn't expect Gaudreau to succeed out of the gate and I don't really expect him to do much this season. That doesn't mean he isn't ready for this level of play. I actually think he has played fairly well despite the lack of scoring. He belongs at this level and getting to sit down and watch a few games from the press box is part of the learning process.

It is likely time to drop Gaudreau in one-year leagues but keeper-leaguers should not be discouraged.

Chock up another assist apiece for each of the Mark Giordano–TJ Brodie pairing. Interestingly enough, the second pairing of Dennis Wideman and Kris Russell saw more power play time. Maybe that's an aberration but it is part of what I'm talking about when I say that I think Wideman scores more this season, which is probably something I need to elaborate on.

Wideman might be junk but he's got a fat contract and has some power play skills. Until Hartley shows me that he's willing to sit the $5-million man down I'm not totally losing faith. And how far does that faith take me? Like 30 points, which given the start Brodie is off to he can probably match but the big thing is I don't think there's room for more than one big scorer on the Flames blueline and Giordano is that #1 guy.

I did point out that there is precedence for a low-scoring team to carry multiple big scorers on the blueline and that's Nashville last season who had Shea Weber at over 50 and Roman Josi and around 40, with those two paired in all offensive situations. But that team had a rocking power play and had Weber lead them in scoring while contributing over 20 goals. Giordano is money but he's not producing what Weber did.

So that's why I don't see Brodie continuing his current pace even if he is more talented than Wideman. Maybe that logic is flawed but it's what I'm rolling with. I'll be curious to see how this plays out.

Dobber was pumping up a Draft Kings daily contest yesterday and I did pretty well riding three teams: Vancouver, Detroit and Nashville.

Detroit clobbered the Leafs, which is nothing new. Henrik Zetterberg, who I warned you not to worry about earlier this week, went off for four assists and fired off five SOG. I was quite happy to have him in my Draft Kings lineup.

Also in my lineup, Johan Franzen who scored two goals. Of course, he also went down with a leg spasm and had to leave the game. He is hoping to play again today but this is nothing new for Franzen. So explosive but oh so injury prone.

With Franzen out, Gustav Nyquist stepped onto the top line scoring a goal and an assist. He has points in all four games to open the season. I'm still waiting for the bubble to burst but the thing with this Red Wings team is that they have so many injury-prone forwards that he keeps getting chances to jump onto the top line. Before you know it that's simply going to be HIS spot but I still think that won't be this season. Stay tuned.

The only bust in my Draft Kings lineup was Niklas Kronwall. He's the only defenseman in Detroit worth owning in fantasy but for whatever reason he avoided points in this one. He didn't even manage a SOG or to block a shot, which is something he's grown adept at since becoming the #1 on the blueline, toning down his hitting game in the process.

There are some whispers of a goalie controversy stirring up in Toronto again. James Reimer got another start but he takes the loss in this one so that won't gain him any momentum. I still think Jonathan Bernier is the #1 in Toronto but it's looking like that isn't necessarily a job worth owning.

I'd have Bernier in a similar league as Luongo as a legit #1 on a bad team. The difference is Reimer who offers enough competition to steal some starts. That brings Bernier down to what's looking like might be a mere 25 wins this season, at league-average stats. That's fine for a third goalie but not quite as reliable as Luongo because he may not be getting the start when you have the opportunity to start him.

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The Predators' hot start continues with a shutout of the Winnipeg Jets. I'm not sure that's a huge feat and I'm not sure the Predators have really had that many tough games early but you've got to give them credit all of the same.

I was rather pleased to see Pekka Rinne record the 31-save shutout, his first of the season. I had him as my goaltender, which was a huge boon, though there were plenty of strong goaltending performances last night to contend with.

Rinne is looking like every bit of the superstar he was prior to his hip woes. It also helps that the Predators are improved in front of him. Looking like we might be in for another top-five fantasy season but I don't want to get overzealous. He should be good for a top-10 showing for sure though.

Both Roman Josi and Shea Weber went scoreless for me last night. That put me 0/3 on defensemen last night. I still think the logic behind picking those two was sound. They are the big dogs for Nashville. Who knew it would be Anton Volchenkov who would notch two assists in just 13 minutes of ice time. Fantasy hockey is fickle sometimes.

Both James Neal and Mike Ribeiro scored for the Predators last night. For Neal it was his first goal and first point as a Predator. That's a good monkey to get off the back.

I'm hearing a lot of concerns from Neal owners out there. I think he'll be fine. They've got to get that power play figured out though. It's clicking at an abysmal 8.3% so far, which is a continuation of some ugly performances in the pre-season. They've got too many weapons to stink though.