Rambling about a few short-term waiver claims, Gibson vs. Andersen, Cammalleri’s ridiculous pace and more …

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All eyes are on Patrick Kane these days with his 22-game points streak, keeping it going on Sunday. I do wish he got it mid-game as opposed to an assist on an empty-net goal when the goalie was arguably pulled a tad early (Hutchinson was pulled with two minutes left). I do admire coaches who have the balls to pull the goalie early. I just wish a big streak wasn’t extended because of it. Not to take anything away from Kane, I’m sure Gretzky had a couple of empty netters that kept his streak going.

Kane’s streak now breaks a Blackhawks’ record that was held by Bobby Hull.

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Dustin Byfuglien is 6-5, 260 pounds.

Bryan Bickell is 6-4, 223 pounds.

BOOM!

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Michael Hutchinson played well Sunday, but he lost. Meanwhile, Connor Hellebuyck keeps winning. The pendulum continues to swing in Hellebuyck’s direction.

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Andrej Nestrasil has six points in his last six games. A player with pretty much no fantasy value, his recent streak is interesting because it’s with a Carolina team that is struggling to score. He’s solving that problem, for now. A fringe NHLer, he’s getting an opportunity by necessity. The team isn’t scoring, they have a regular on the IR (Gerbe) and they’re not very deep up front. Just an interesting idea here, if you’re in a deep league and have to fill a depth roster spot for a week or so. He’s playing with Nordstrom and Staal, but seeing second-unit PP time with Skinner. Here are Carolina’s line combos from last night:

Versteeg went from healthy scratch to a two-point game on Eric Staal’s line. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ol’ “healthy scratch wakeup call” makes him a productive player for a couple of weeks now.

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Martin Hanzal has just four points and is minus-10 in his last 10 games. I’m sure a minus-10 over the course of three weeks has hurt more than a few fantasy teams.

Anthony Duclair may have picked up an assist last night, but he has just one point in six games and is minus-6 in that span. Duclair will probably be hot/cold all season long. Check out the breakdown:

First six games: (6-5-2-7, plus-6)

Next 10 games: (10-1-0-1, minus-1)

Next five games: (5-2-4-6, plus-3)

Last six games: (6-0-1-1, minus-6)

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The Coyotes were hoping to pull another Dubnyk out of their hat when they signed Anders Lindback to the backup goaltender. Giving up five goals on 18 shots Sunday doesn’t really forward that cause.

Michael Stone had seven shots on goal Sunday, tying a career high. He’s a minus-7 in his last four games, but he’s off to the best start of his career offensively.

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Back from the dead? Fallen prospect Stefan Elliott, a former DobberHockey favorite, has gotten into the Arizona lineup two straight games now. And he has points in both of them. Three points and plus-3 in those two games – games in which most of the players on his team are in the red for plus/minus. Promising still is the fact that he played 19:22. I like how Dave Tippett is really being careful integrating him into the lineup. Elliott is in the lineup at the expense of Connor Murphy, who has Golden Boy status over Elliott. That basically means that Elliott can’t stop. He can’t take a break from producing, the points have to continue. Since the odds of that happening are slim, I don’t have my hopes up. But I’m definitely watching the situation. I guess I’m a little loyal to the old favorites.

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Also scratched in that game – Viktor Tikhonov. The Coyotes claimed him off of Chicago, their opponent, but then didn’t dress him against his old mates. No fantasy value for Tikhonov.

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The prize for the most surprising thing this season is obviously Crosby’s point total. But for me, the runner up has to be Mike Cammalleri’s point total. He’s the fifth player of the season to reach the 30-point mark! Really? Cammalleri? I would be less surprised to discover he ended this season with fewer than 30 points than I am today watching him get 30 points in 27 games. I would have bet anyone back in September that Crosby would beat Cammalleri by 25 points this season. I would have given 25 points in the wager.

That being said, please consider the following games-played numbers for Cammalleri over the past six seasons (I pro-rated the lockout season):

68, 63, 75, 66, 67, 65

So be smart. Assume 67 games and a slowdown will come. Click on his name and you’ll see in his profile that his 5on5 SH% is inflated.

Cammalleri’s over-production is inflating Adam Henrique’s numbers as well.

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New to DobberHockey is the Player Search box on the right side of all pages. Go ahead – look to your right. See? Type in a player’s last name and not only will it list the articles he’s mentioned in, but also a link to his profile page as well as his current stats.

We’re going to be upgrading the search box within the profile pages and also the load time for those pages will be improved. Very soon.

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Damon Severson picked up his first points since November 14 (10 games). He was given secondary power-play ice time, which I guess is a step up from zero. John Moore was taken off the PP and David Schlemko (?) was the main QB. At this point, I think John Hynes spins a wheel before every game in order to determine his PP defense pairings.

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It was Schneider versus Luongo on Sunday. The Devils won the game, but the team did zero favors for Schneider – they were outshot 36-18.

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People are marvelling over how Kyle Turris actually got back into the Ottawa lineup for Sunday’s game. Did you see this? Yikes!

But he was back. He played 20:31, so all seems to be well. How? No idea. That looked rough…

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With two points last night, Derick Brassard has 17 in his last 20. He was already playing well, but he’s showing once again that his production goes up another level when Derek Stepan is out of the lineup. Brassard has five in his last five games.

Oddly enough, his linemate Mats Zuccarello has managed just one point in his last eight games. It’s very rare to see one player light it up like this while his linemate gets nothing, game after game.

Ryan McDonagh tied a career high with three points last night, ending a four-game pointless skid.

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Chris Kunitz watch: Kunitz went from three points. Period. To a three-game points streak! He and Crosby appear to have the magic back. I’m with Laidlaw though – not really sold on Kunitz as a permanent fix. But unlike Laidlaw, I have no problem with snagging him on a short-term basis.

Kris Letang was still out of the lineup, but they showed a clip of him practicing and I didn’t see the issue. The guy was skating around pylons uninhibited and he was firing off pucks just fine. Maybe it was a mild head injury and they’re just playing it safe because of his concussion history? At any rate, David Warsofsky got all his PP time last night, but was unable to make an impression.

Getting worrisome – Coach Mike Johnston’s treatment of Daniel Sprong. The 18-year-old has been scratched from eight consecutive games. Good for development? Johnston’s going to Grigorenko this guy into oblivion. Between this and Pittsburgh winning just one of their last five games and I have to wonder (hope?) if Johnston’s time is coming to an end.

If he gets fired, will the Penguins we were all hoping to see, start to show up? Remember the Kessel buzz back in the summer?

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John Gibson has allowed just three goals in his last four games and he has three wins in that span. He continues to light it up between the pipes – and so Frederik Andersen remains out of the picture. But at least he was finally activated. He was actually on IR all this time with the…uh…flu. But Sunday he was finally in uniform as the backup.

I think Gibson is a great goalie, don’t get me wrong. But I truly believe Andersen is superior. Maybe the team plays better in front of Gibson, I can’t really speak to that. But quality vs. quality, I like Andersen better. So will the Ducks waive Anton Khudobin, trade Andersen, or go with a three-headed monster? Something is going to give here but I will say this much – Andersen is a “buy”. Wherever he ends up, he’ll land on his feet (skates?) and put up good numbers. If he stays with the Ducks, his starts may be cannibalized. But otherwise, don’t worry about Andersen (and acquire him from anyone in your league who is worrying).

Sami Vatanen has 12 points in his last 14 games.

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Jack Eichel is waking up. Remember last week, I had mused that he was squeezing his stick and pushing too hard, but when he started scoring again he would really heat up. Points in two straight now, so I think we may be onto something. Hopefully you were (are?) able to buy low on him. Just a gut feeling still, no stats to base this on…

Anders Nilsson has started five consecutive games and nine of the last 10. And why not? He’s 4-1-0 and the Oilers are winning sans McDavid. He’s got a winning record, he’s got confidence…he’s selling me. Talbot can’t get his net back.

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Some early notes on the TB – LAK game. I’ll leave my rough notes in, rather than expand on them or remove them (because I’m going to bed early tonight – midnight is early for me!)

– Tyler Johnson was back in the lineup

– Steven Stamkos was pointless and a minus-3 by the second period

– Jordan Weal is finally back in the LA lineup. Second straight game, but ice time being held down

– Vasilevskiy got the hook. Four consecutive weak games. But he’s not playing very often at all. Best served with some AHL time?

– Anze Kopitar with points in seven of his last eight games. Remember panicking about this guy last month?