Going after Carolina players; Zuccarello heating up; Pickard/Raanta on fire; and more …

***

I noted on Wednesday that I thought Kopitar’s performance with Gaborik was very promising despite just the one point. But I guess I didn’t know the half of it. Eight points in two games after that brought more than a handful of poolies back up among the leaders in their league. I have him in two of the leagues, both of which I think I should be leading but have not been. Just from those two games – one player – and now in both leagues I’ve pulled into a three-way tie for first (or close enough). The scary thing is that he’s on pace for just 56 points. Still. He’ll get at least 64, and probably closer to 70 or 72. Which means about 47 points in the next 48 games.

*

I love it when injuries strike and the beneficiary of said injuries is obvious. So when Jacob Trouba and Mark Stuart were injured, I was all over Grant Clitsome like a fat kid on a Smartie. He has two points in three games now and with the added ice time and power-play time I think you’ll see some pretty decent production for the next several weeks. With some players, their niche really matters. Clitsome isn’t good enough to be a star power-play quarterback on purpose. But if he is an injury fill-in for a couple of weeks in that capacity, he’s quite good. But use him as a depth or defensive defenseman and he’s not going to help a team. A good guy to have in the press box if the NHL team has several puck-moving defensemen who tend to get hurt. So he’s tailor-made for the Jets. With Bogosian, Trouba, Enstrom and even Postma (and Byfuglien, of course), there is no place for Clitsome. But take three of those guys out – such as now – and he’s solid. Think seven or eight points in say 15 games.

And while I’m on the topic of defensemen taking advantage of injuries, I have two words for ya: Andrej Sekera. You saw it last year when the Hurricanes acquired John-Michael Liles. Sekera went through a slump because he lost the power-play time and the offensive zone starts. Then Kirk Muller came to the realization that Liles is horrible, so Sekera got the PP time (and zone starts) back and his points returned. Now with Bill Peters in, there is another new coach who needs to see for himself that Liles is horrible. He’s taking awhile to learn this, so Sekera’s numbers suffer. All that being said, Liles is out with a UBI and Sekera has three points in those three games. So will it continue? No, because Liles is back.

Look at last night’s game. It’s not just the PP time, which remained the same for Sekera. But with Liles back and getting all the easy minutes, Sekera returned to his old shutdown role. So until Liles is hurt again or the coach wakes up, Sekera will be fantasy-useless (but real-world stud).