Rambling about Andersen vs. Gibson, a Nashville sleeper pick, Johansson on fire and more…

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What we saw last year is being confirmed this season. NHL GM’s are not stupid people. They learn. They adapt. If you want to help your team for the playoffs you need to not only get your guy, but you also need to give him time to integrate his style into the team’s style. So making a trade in advance of the trade deadline ensures both of those things. On Trade Deadline Day, expect it to be very quiet until around 2pm and then perhaps 15-20 trades real quick. But only one or two will be called ‘significant’. Instead, keep checking in here for our breakdowns because I have a feeling that four days won’t go by without a trade between now and 19 days from now.

For the last 10 years I have been breaking down trades on NHL Deadline Day as they happen. I don’t break the trade, but usually within a half hour I’ll have a solid analysis up for you so you can make a snap decision in your own league (for your own league’s deadline). I’ve done this longer than anyone in fantasy hockey – you know my track record (unless you’re new to the site)

Also, for quick references on traded players, bookmark here and here. That’s the link for the player profiles (that I put together from what I want in a player profile, top to bottom) and the link for prospect profiles.

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Yes, I do think the Leafs are trying to free up as much cap space as possible to get Steven Stamkos in the summer. I also think the Lightning would be smart to let Stamkos go. They have built a team that can score without him, and tying up their salary on him will do more harm than good.

For what it’s worth, I thought the Leafs would make a huge splash with Dustin Byfuglien and Stamkos. So perhaps they sign David Backes instead. Add some leadership. And a good stay-at-home defenseman with experience such as Dan Hamhuis. If they can get Hamhuis on a low term, and the Backes ask isn’t too ridiculous, then this is doable. Add William Nylander and a second prospect (Zach Hyman? Tobias Lindberg?) and the Leafs take a big step forward next year.

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This is unbelievable in this day and age, but 94 shots were fired on net last night in the Los Angeles – Boston game. The Kings had 57 of them. Yes, the Sutter-coached Kings had 57 shots on goal.

I’ll take “Kings Skaters Who Didn’t Get a Point Last Night”, for $500 Alex. The correct response is – “Who are Brayden McNabb, Alex Martinez and Jordan Nolan?”

The downside of 15 players picking up a point for the winning team in a 9-2 victory – there probably aren’t any gaudy point totals. And that’s exactly true for this game. Not one player had three points and Anze Kopitar had just one. Kopitar owners, tell me your eyes didn’t light up when you saw the 9-2 score. Tell me! And now tell me of your crushing disappointment as you opened up and read the box score line by line. D’oh!

Dustin Brown had two points though. In fact, Brown has been on a roll of late. And no you’re not reading a Ramblings from 2011. He’s actually on a roll. Seven points in his last six games to go with 22 SOG and 15 Hits. He’s been playing with Kopitar and Milan Lucic and although he’s not getting any PP time, he seems to be doing just fine with those guys (for now).

Bad news for Tanner Pearson owners. The first time he gets a healthy scratch this season and his team scores nine goals. It may prove difficult for him to get back in.

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The Steven Stamkos line has gone ice cold. Stamkos himself has just three points in seven games while in that same span Ondrej Palat and Vladislav Namestnikov have just three and one respectively. If the (new) Triplets pick up the slack, then there’s no problem. But the last two games, Johnson – Killorn – Kucherov haven’t been great. Something will give here, they just ran into a hot goalie.

Yes, I was referring to Ben Scrivens. No, I don’t need my head checked.

Scrivens has won three in a row and he’s stopped 94 of 98 shots. The Habs go on the road now, but they do play Buffalo and Arizona the next two games. Scrivens is a safe play for those two games and probably the three after that as well.

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I really thought Jakob Silfverberg had turned the corner. I really did. But he’s gone five games without a point now so we’re back to the same old thing. Prior to that he had 11 points in eight games. I used to call this the “Cam Atkinson”, but I think I’ll start calling it the “Jakob Silfverberg”.

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I get criticized (more and more as time goes by) about my steady stance that Frederik Andersen is better than John Gibson. Fantasy owners are so in love with Gibson and they always have been, never taking Andersen seriously. If Andersen walks away as a free agent, the Ducks will be fine. Gibson is a great goalie. I’m just saying that Andersen is better. His numbers on the season are better. His numbers last season were better. His numbers lately are better. He’s better.

Here are the last seven games:

Andersen: 6-0-0, 1.61 GAA, 0.942 SV%

Gibson: 4-3-0, 2.93 GAA, 0.893 SV%

And I’m positive that almost to a man (or woman), fantasy owners prefer Gibson. So the play here is to trade your Gibson for Andersen and get another asset in the deal. You’d upgrade the goalie and you get that other asset. Meanwhile, the other sucker things he or she stole the better goalie from you.

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The streak continues for Shayne Gostisbehere. Points in nine straight.

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When Marcus Johansson had to sit due to injury he was on a roll with 15 points in 14 games. He returned last night and picked up three more points. A word of caution: he’s playing with Jason Chimera and Tom Wilson on the third line. And the top two lines are in stone. However, Johansson is getting top PP time.

Andre Burakovsky has points in eight straight.

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Since the Seth Jones trade, Mattias Ekholm has been getting regular power-play time. He has 10 points in the 14 games since that trade, with two of those points on the power play. Ekholm is a worthy own.

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Quite the game for Alex Petrovic. Two points, plus-4, 29 PIM, two SOG, a hit and a blocked shot. In his last six games he has four points, plus-6, 31 PIM, 11 Hits and nine SOG. He’s starting to make his presence felt in leagues that count physical categories.

Also, he had a fight with Evander Kane. Here it is:

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Oh, and Petrovic had a second fight with Kane. Here it is:

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Uh…they weren’t done. Here’s Petrovic vs. Kane for the third time last night:

I think Evander Kane is 3-0 in those fights…He also had a goal and 29 PIM. So although he’s on pace for a measly 34 points this season, he’s looking good for 100 PIM and 200 Hits.

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Since Jake Allen went down with an injury Brian Elliott is 7-3-3, 1.74 GAA and 0.946 SV%

Vladimir Tarasenko’s current slump – one point in his last seven games, three in his last 11.

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John Tavares has 10 points in his last seven games. He was my predicted player to lead all scorers in the second half. That’s obviously not gonna happen thanks to ‘The Kid’…but it’s looking like Tavares could be second.

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Marc-Edouard Vlasic has points in five straight. He also has 18 points in his last 22 games. Say what?

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As always, a good read from Elliotte Friedman (30 Thoughts)

I missed plugged this on Monday. It’s my fantasy mailbag over on Sportsnet that I did last weekend.

Here is Rick Roos’ weekly article (buy low/sell high)

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Some Chrome users cannot access DobberSports (i.e. the shop) and Dobbernomics due to a 500 Error. Rest assured we are working on that. It stems from a site update we did on the weekend. A supposedly ‘harmless’ one.

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I’m trying to be patient with the NHL.com launch and the Game Centre app launch…but it’s taking too long. Anyone else having difficulty? I click “watch” on a game, I login and then it plays the radio feed. It won’t give me the video feed. I can’t watch! Please tell me I’m not alone here.