Top 10 Slow Starters

Tom Collins

2014-10-20

CareyPrice

10 players you want to be patient with in your league.

Fantasy hockey managers probably make more bad decisions in the first two weeks of the NHL season than any other time of the year.

A player who starts the season on a hot streak is seen as the next big thing, and GMs will overpay to get them. Meanwhile, a star that starts off slow is traded for peanuts, all because a GM lost his first matchup of the season, or finds himself in ninth place in a points only pool when they were expecting to be competing.

My theory is this comes from football, where a typical fantasy football season lasts 14 weeks, so a bad start can have a major impact if your fantasy team makes the playoffs.

Below are 10 guys who are off to slow starts with whom you need to be patient.

I also can't stress these three words enough: small sample size. Most players have played four to seven games this season. If a guy went scoreless for four games in February, you wouldn't worry about it, so there's no need to worry about it now.

10. Marian Hossa

On the bright side, Hossa hasn't missed a game yet because of injury. But his only goal so far has been a shorthanded marker against the dreadful Sabres. One of the reasons is the fact that Andrew Shaw has taken his place on the top power play unit (Shaw plays with Kane, Toews and Sharp, while Hossa is stuck with Bickell, Richards and Saad). Surprisingly, Hossa is only seventh on the Blackhawks among forwards for power play ice time per game. However, there are some encouraging signs: Hossa is averaging the second most even strength ice time among Hawks forwards, and has fired an average of 3.5 shots a game. He'll be back to a 60-point pace before you know it.

9. James Neal

Every poolie expected Neal to suffer fantasy-wise once he was dealt to Nashville in the offseason, but many were still optimistic that Neal could be a 30-30 guy in Nashville. But he's off to a pretty slow start, scoring one goal in five games. Worse, he's been a minus-player in four of the five games so far. There's still plenty of hope that Neal can rebound: He's on the top power play unit, averaging 3:40 ice time per game. And he's still shooting the puck, averaging 3.2 shots a game. He also has a shooting percentage of just 6.2 per cent this season, about half his career average (his worst ever season was 11.3 per cent last year). After all, someone on Nashville has to score, and he's getting the best opportunity to do so.

8. Henrik Lundqvist

Despite a 33-save shutout last night, Lundqvist doesn't have great numbers. But he also has a history of starting slow, and this is the third year in a row he's done this.

2014-15: 3-2 record, .892 save percentage, 3.21 GAA, one shutout

2013-14: 2-5 record, .895 save percentage, 4.43 GAA, one shutout

2012-12: 3-5 record, .900 save percentage, 2.83 GAA, zero shutouts

Right around the eight game mark, Lundqvist starts to pick it up. In each of the last two seasons, he's finished with a save percentage in the .920s, a GAA of 2.36 or less, 35-plus wins and five shutouts (prorating the 2012-13 shortened season) So there's no reason to worry when it comes to King Henrik.

7. Milan Lucic

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This one was a tough one to include, as Lucic is still contributing in the peripheral categories (his 26 penalty minutes is tops in the league). But in one-year leagues, since you can draft solely PIM guys late, Lucic was drafted higher up because he could also score. So far, he has just two assists in seven games (both of those coming against Montreal last week). There is a worrisome trend for Lucic that he is averaging just 16:19 of ice time this season, his lowest since 2009-10.