Taking a look at the week ahead in the NHL schedule, and how best to set your lineups
There are no guarantees in fantasy hockey, but a pair of tried and true strategies will always pay off in the long haul:
– Bet on the best combination of talent and opportunity to achieve the desired level of production you are looking for from your roster. Talent means nothing without opportunity, and vice-versa.
– Focus on the process by which you make roster decisions, as opposed to the results they yield. Long-term success is not attainable without the knowledge of why you were successful in the short term.
With that in mind, let's take a look ahead at some teams and players to target or avoid in the coming week or so:
Love 'Em (These squads are the best bet to produce for fantasy owners)
San Jose – There is a wealth of high-end offensive talent on this roster, even if some of the squad's core players are a little long in the tooth and the team lacks the depth to be able excel in all aspects of the game. Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Brent Burns and Joe Thornton are all averaging almost a point per game so far on the young season, and Tomas Hertl has the talent to eventually see more action on the power play than he is right now. The Sharks should shine with four games between Nov. 15 and Nov. 20: at the Sergei Bobrovsky-less Columbus Blue Jackets, at Carolina, at Buffalo and home versus Florida. The fantasy-relevant stats will be there for this squad.
Bet On 'Em (These players are owned in 25 percent of Yahoo leagues or less and may be worth a look)
Jori Lehtera, C, St. Louis (Available in 59 percent of Yahoo leagues… Yeah, I know I'm cheating) – Yes, Lehtera is worth a look. Any player averaging more than a point per game through the season's first month should garner some lineup consideration. Just be aware of the fact that he is a 26-year-old rookie with no prospect pedigree to speak of, as well as someone who is currently sporting a shooting percentage of 25 percent. It almost goes without saying that Lehtera's 15 minutes of fantasy fame are almost up, but he is seeing action alongside Vladamir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz (the squad's top two scorers). He could keep up his hot streak for a while longer, but fantasy owners are asking a bit much to expect Lehtera to keep up his elite scoring pace. Useful? Absolutely. Dominant? No.
Zach Bogosian, D, Winnipeg (Available in 86 percent of Yahoo leagues) – Injuries and inconsistency have always kept the third overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft from reaching his lofty potential as a high-end defenseman.Now it's very reasonable to consider Bogosian the fourth-most fantasy relevant defenseman on his own team (and that squad is Winnipeg). That being said, Bogosian still displays the sort of skills that suggest he could be an offensive-minded blueliner at some point in the future, and only two players on his team (fellow defensemen Tobias Enstrom and Jacob Trouba) are seeing more ice time. Give Bogosian a look in very deep leagues, and hope injuries to other players coupled with continued development allow him to see more time on the power play.
Alex Tanguay, RW, Colorado (Available in 10 percent of Yahoo leagues) – This veteran winger has always been adept at scoring goals. Now he's skating on the same line as fellow Colorado forwards Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly, two above-average players capable of elevating a veteran goal-scorer with diminishing skills like Tanguay to another level. Tanguay has nine points in 17 games and is seeing more than three minutes of ice time on the power play this season. Roughly between 40 and 50 points is a reasonable expectation for the 34-year-old veteran in 2014-15.
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