November 16, 2014

Thomas Drance

2014-11-16

Severson’s regression, Gonchar’s sneaky potential, and more …

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Busy night of fantasy hockey to sort through, but let’s start with the injuries. It was announced on Saturday that Dallas Stars forward Valeri Nichushkin will miss the next four months following hip surgery, which is scheduled for this week.

The Stars are optimistic that the surgery will fix the discomfort that Nichushkin – who has bobbed in and out of the lineup all year – was apparently dealing with. Hopefully they’re right.

Obviously Nichushkin going down is a tough blow, particularly for keeper league owners who anticipated a breakout season from the dynamic 19-year-old power forward. It’s also a tough blow for GameCentre Live junkies with a particular appreciation for the insane, reckless way that Nichushkin drives the net…

Hopefully the operation sets Nichushkin right, because the league is poorer for his absence.

Also a minor, but possibly critical note, the Chicago Blackhawks re-assigned Antti Raanta to AHL Rockford on Saturday and called up Scott Darling. No, this isn’t a move that necessarily moves the needle, but it’s always good to know who to rush and pick up in the event that Corey Crawford goes down with injury.

I’m going to go ahead and knock on wood, just for the benefit of our Blackhawks fan readers.

Okay to the hockey! So Tuukka Rask had a bit of a shaky week, in particular struggling to stop Phil Kessel snapshots – which, yeah fair enough – but was excellent against an overmatched Hurricanes team. Rask stopped 33 of 34 shots in a 2-1 Bruins win, that was aided by a goal scored by Seth Griffith – his fifth of the year.

Griffith has a lot of ground to makeup if he hopes to catch the top rookie scorers, but it’s worth noting that he’s pretty much the only big name rookie who hasn’t benefited enormously from insanely favorable bounces. I really think he could be a dark horse Calder Trophy candidate yet…

Brad Marchand has been playing through some sort of minor injury since late October, but he checked out of the third period of Saturday’s game after playing in just three shifts. Claude Julien said after wards that Marchand “isn’t injured per se” and that the club was just playing it safe. Still worth tracking closely if you own him (or are considering trading for him).

The Minnesota Wild defeated the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Saturday, and their blue-line minutes are all over the map as a result of Jonas Brodin and Marco Scandella battling the mumps. So Jared Spurgeon logged nearly 28 minutes, Keith Ballard played more than 20, and Ryan Suter was well over 30 on Saturday afternoon. None of them put up big numbers – though Spurgeon blocked seven shots if you’re in a league with that as a category – but that’s worth considering going forward.

Antoine Roussel scored his fifth goal of the year and also threw seven hits. No penalty minutes, but that’s still a solid fantasy outing. He’s also on the first power-play unit, so we might reasonably expect big things from him going forward.

Ryan Kesler scored another goal in a 3-2 Ducks loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, and is now on some hot-streak. Kesler now has three goals and four points in his last seven games, and seems to be fully healthy (since he’s dominating play). He may outscore Nick Bonino this season yet!

Sami Vatanen led all Ducks defenders in time on ice, and that’s with Cam Fowler back in the lineup. Vatanen also played top-pairing minutes for the Finnish Olympic team in Sochi, and is really under-rated defensively. He didn’t do much on Saturday – aside from an even-strength assist – but, man, with 13 points in 18 games, this is definitely the last season he goes undrafted.

As we mentioned with the Wild, we should also point out with the Kings: as a result of a depleted defense corps, Los Angeles’ top pairing guys are getting major burn. Drew Doughty actually topped his regular season career high by logging 33:21 on Saturday while Jake Muzzin played over 24 minutes. Muzzin capitalized more – with two assists, two PPP, three shots, and six hits; but Doughty had a strong game too, with an assist, one PPP, two shots, and a hit thrown.

I’d imagine both players are poised to go off in a major way over the coming week to 10 days.

Dustin Brown has two goals in 18 games this season, and his fastball is nowhere in sight. He’ll regress in a positive direction somewhat offensively, but man, the bottom really seems to have fallen out on him. At least he threw 11 hits?

A bunch of Buffalo Sabres had excellent fantasy outings, which is too bad since you surely don’t own any of them! Matt Moulson, Tyler Ennis and Drew Stafford all had three point outings against the Toronto Maple Leafs, while Zemgus Girgensons scored two goals.

James Reimer gave me the win in my H2H league this week, so yeah, he was brutal. Six goals against on 35 shots faced is a tough go, but it happens, and guess what: Reimer is still an above average puck stopper.

David Clarkson scored his fifth goal of the season, took three shots, and threw three hits. Is he fantasy relevant again?

So Sergei Gonchar is kind of an intriguing waiver wire pick up, I think. He managed two assists and three shots on goal on Saturday, and has logged major power play minutes in his first two games in a Canadiens uniform. If you need a defender, he could provide some value, particularly if he keeps seeing a lot of ice at five-on-four.

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Dale Weise has three goals and one assist in his most recent two games, but is still playing fourth-line minutes so don’t get carried away OK?

Brayden Schenn is having a very impressive season fantasy wise, and now has 13 points in 16 games. He’s currently riding a five game point streak and has three goals, four assists during that time frame. His shot rate leaves a bit to be desired, but his line on Saturday was flat out sick – three hits, five shots, two goals and a +1.

After a solid run in late October Flyers goaltender Ray Emery started his first game this month on Saturday and played poorly. Probably time to drop him if you haven’t already.

Brock Nelson’s shot rate is still a problem and he’s cooled off enormously of late, but he beat Ben Bishop with a pitch perfect shot to open the scoring on Saturday and rifled off seven shots int he contest. If he keeps up that volume shooting act, he’s got a chance to take his value to another level. Nothing in his track record suggests he will though…

Having a third-line with Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov on it is unfair. Also, kudos to Steve Yzerman for turning the whole “your third line has to be a checking line!” misnomer on its head. Tampa’s third line is their most potent offensive group, and they’re absolutely wrecking tertiary competition this season.

The bloom is off the “Damon Severson fantasy darling” rose, eh? He’s still got value, but he didn’t do much on Saturday (although getting three shots on goal from a defensive slot isn’t anything to sniff at). Still, that -3, 1 hit, 3 shots line isn’t anything particularly good.