Rambling Hellebuyck, Nilsson, Larkin, Huberdeau, Galchenyuk, Hayes, Ennis and more …

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Cyber Monday – For TODAY ONLY I'll give you $6 off when you buy BOTH the Midseason Guide and the Interactive Playoff Draft List (pre-order). Use coupon code: cyber

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Mike Babcock is losing so much confidence in Jonathan Bernier that he's giving prospect Garret Sparks the start tonight. Sparks did very well in the ECHL last year and is off to a strong start in the AHL this year. Bernier has had a penchant for giving up weak goals – and early ones – that deflate the team before the first period reaches the midway point. Bernier is on a two-year deal, otherwise I'd say that his career is in trouble here…

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This could be happening faster than I thought it would. Michael Hutchinson has lost three straight games: 4.10 GAA and 0.860 SV%. Connor Hellebuyck has played just the one game, but he won it and stopped 14 of 15 shots. The scales are tipping towards the kid. And quickly. I said this would happen by Christmas, but I’m starting to wonder if it will happen by…the end of the week? Ondrej Pavelec is out until February – I think Hellebuyck has huge potential here. More than enough to steal the starter job for down the stretch.

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Michael Condon is showing that he’s a great pickup during the Carey Price injury, but he’s also showing that he can’t be leaned on for a lengthy workload expected of a number one guy. In his last six games his SV% is just 0.881.

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And the other goalie situation I’m keeping a close eye on is in Edmonton. Anders Nilsson is 2-2-0 in his last four games with a 1.73 GAA and a 0.940 SV%. That’s enough to say that he’s stolen the top job from Cam Talbot for now. And it would probably take a complete 180 in fortunes out of both of these netminders over the course of three weeks before it would ever switch back to Talbot. I doubt that’s going to happen, but obviously you can never be 100% certain of these things.

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Dylan Larkin has seven points in his last seven games and he has 24 shots on goal in that span. Just when it looked as though he was slowing down, he gets back on track. I found that Filip Forsberg did that a lot last season – went absolutely nuts and then hit a wall. Then, just when you were about to write him off as “fallen back to earth” he goes nuts again. In Larkin’s case though, just one of his 18 points have come on the power play and he’s only seeing about a third of the available PP time. Another point against are his even strength luck measures. Click on his name for the link and you’ll see, but basically a PDO of 1082 and a 5on5 SH% of 12.1%. His personal overall SH% is 15.6%. With a current pace of 62 points, I’d be more inclined to figure him for the low-50s this season.

For Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek, Sunday marked his third OT loss in his last four starts. He’s easily been the better of the two Detroit goalies, but he hasn’t pulled away enough to stop this every-other-game thing they have going on right now.

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Jonathan Huberdeau now has points in eight of his last 10 games. He’s upped his pace to 46 points after what was a pretty bad start – and I still think he ends up in the mid-to high 50s.

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I was able to shed some of my risk and cut some losses late last week. I own Chris Kunitz in two leagues and players can’t be dropped other than in a draft or in a serious roster overage situation. So I’m stuck with him unless I can trade him. I moved him and Mark Giordano and got back Frans Nielsen and a dropsy. Points carry over, and in that league defensemen are regarded the same as any other player (so Giordano is just a possible 60-point player who is producing like a 20-point player). At least in Nielsen I gained a few points. This only works out for me if Nielsen finishes with more points than Kunitz – and that will be the case.

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Just one game yesterday because of the Grey Cup (is that really why?). For what it’s worth, the Edmonton Eskimos won. And this Tweet about sums that up:

Confusion in Edmonton. Football fans running around screaming "We won the big one!" and hockey fans all like "The draft lottery was today?"

— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) November 30, 2015

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Frederik Andersen was hit hard by the flu last week, to the extent that he couldn’t eat anything substantial for several days. He said that he didn’t start eating again until Thursday and right now he’s trying to regain his energy. The Ducks play tonight and then they play again on Wednesday. You can probably pencil Andersen in for then.

The Ducks also recalled Nate Thompson (conditioning stint) and Shea Theodore. Thompson will get into his first NHL game of the season and change the look of the lineup. Theodore has yet to play a game in his career. The 20-year-old has 22 points in 32 career AHL games. Get the lowdown on Theodore here.

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Alex Galchenyuk has seven points in his last five games. As the boys note in this week’s Keeping Karlsson, this could be from the added responsibility thanks to the Gallagher injury. But I think his overall pace (59 points) is about where it should be, or maybe a tiny bit high.

Disappointed that the Habs sent Bud Holloway back down. Would have liked to have seen three or four games. Was pulling for him. They called up Daniel Carr, who has 12 points in 18 games for St. John’s. More on Carr here.

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With Derek Stepan out for a month, it’s time to take a look at the rest of the lineup and see who this impacts. Kevin Hayes moves back to center and Emerson Etem draws into the lineup. Chris Kreider fills out what should be the second line. Hayes saw a noticeable bump in ice time and saw more PP time than either JT Miller or Oscar Lindberg. So Hayes is your guy, for now. Will he take advantage? That’s the question. And if the answer ends up being “no”, then I’ll be tossing another name at you next week (Lindberg? Miller?).

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Tomas Jurco is back in the NHL and he was back in the lineup Sunday. He played with Pavel Datsyuk and Brad Richards, but the trio was held off the score sheet.

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Tyler Ennis has been out for three games now and he could be out for a while yet. Meanwhile, Sam Reinhart saw nearly 20 minutes of ice time on Saturday. Makes an intriguing claim in one-year leagues.

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This offer is still there, FYI (and I have listed all the fixes and upgrades for Dobbernomics HERE so take a quick look and please like the page):

In Dobbernomics I moved up to ninth worldwide and got my team value up to $52.50M. Yes, not many are playing but while this game is in Beta mode I’m trying to see how high I can boost team value. Whoever can boost their team value up the most by Christmas I’ll give you $50. Interested? You can create a team now. Buy and sell your players to help move the ‘stock’ market, and get your portfolio up there. If the top team can get to $58 million by Christmas I’ll make it $100!

It is my goal to have this launch, without the ‘Beta’, for the playoffs and have a DobberHockey postseason contest hosted there instead of the usual box pools. Thanks everyone for their helpful feedback – not just of bugs, but of suggestions to improve. Suggestions may not be implemented quickly, but they’re all filed away on a “to do” list in terms of the long-term vision of the site.

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Thrilled that Torts is back in the NHL. Makes things more interesting (40 seconds in)…