Rambling about some last minute injury information, playoff goalie starts, free playoff pool and more

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Pick up my 11^th annual Playoff Draft List – HERE. I updated it at 11pm Tuesday night. That should be the last update, barring anything catastrophic during the day today.

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Jaroslav Halak will miss the entire first round for the Islanders, but that might be a good thing. He’s half the goaltender he could be when he returns too early from injury and Thomas Greiss has been just fine. Great, in fact. I have a feeling that if the Isles ever get down 3-0 or 3-1 then we’ll see Halak quickly heal enough to play (thanks to the magic spray, of course).

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The Ducks have sent Anton Khudobin back to the AHL, which means that John Gibson is ready to go. But will he start? I’ve been vocal here for two years that Andersen is the better goaltender. And as the owner of a fantasy hockey site, I have firsthand interactions with a ton of fantasy owners – and 90% of them prefer Gibson. But what matters is what the coach thinks. And Bruce Boudreau seems to have no idea. Conventional thinking scoffs at the idea of rolling both goaltenders in the postseason. Teams have traditionally ridden just one goalie from start to finish, unless that goalie plays his way out of chances in which case they ride the second goalie from that point onward. But I’ve said here several times that starting Andersen and Gibson every other game has been working. And as long as they were given the heads up (I’m sure they were) months ago, they’ll have no psychological issues with just going out there every second game. I really think that’s what we’re looking at here. Andersen played 43 games this season while Gibson played 40. As a duo they won the William Jennings Trophy (fewest goals allowed). Call me crazy but I think it could work. If the Ducks win the Stanley Cup I can honestly see Andersen winning eight games and Gibson winning eight games.

Anyway – draft accordingly.

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Buffalo forward Cody McCormick has announced his retirement. He had a blood clot in his leg that cost him the season. Not enough is being made of these blood clots – very serious business. Steven Stamkos has a blood clot issue and it has to be a concern for his future UFA suitors.

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Chicago sent Bryan Bickell down to the minors and called up David Rundblad. They also sent down Dennis Rasmussen. This pretty much confirms that Marian Hossa, Andrew Shaw and Artem Anisimov will be ready to go. Rundblad is up for Game 1 because Duncan Keith will miss it due to suspension. I doubt Rundblad will play and I figure he’ll get sent back down before Game 2.

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The Sharks signed European free agent netminder Mantas Armalis to a one-year deal. I don’t know much about Armalis other than the fact that he is 6-4 (which is good in today’s NHL) and that the Sharks seem to know their European goalies. At least, over the past 10 or 15 years that’s the case. Armalis finished sixth in the SHL (Sweden) in save percentage, though two of the goalies ahead of him are Mikael Tellqvist and Justin Pogge so take that for what it’s worth.

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The big signing yesterday was by Winnipeg. They signed their stud prospect Kyle Connor to an entry-level contract. He’ll get a long look in camp, though it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a year in the AHL before making the jump. He’s ready, but the Jets have a lot of youngsters and he may be best served as a midseason call-up such as what happened with Ryan Strome a couple of years ago. Connor ranks sixth on my Top 200 Fantasy Prospects List. And you can read his scouting fantasy profile here.

While you’re at DobberProspects, check out their latest Ramblings here.

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Marc-Andre Fleury says he's had no setbacks since suffering his most recent concussion.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) April 12, 2016

And:

#FlaPanthers Vincent Trocheck still in a walking boot

— George Richards (@GeorgeRichards) April 12, 2016

Just an FYI for your draft tonight.

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Join two things for me:

1. The NHL.com bracket – I created a DobberHockey league so we can show the world that DobberHockey readers are better at projecting than any other group of readers! Already up over 200 people – LINK IS HERE

2. DobberHockey of course has a free playoff pool for you to join. This time I’m hosting it myself – on Dobbernomics! That’s right, Dobbernomics Beta 2.0 is ready. Our final Beta. Things are mostly as we want it now and at this point it’s just nitpicking and tweaks. Full launch will be in September. There is only one division for this Beta – the main one. Join here. Pick your team, swap players in and out throughout the playoffs. I’m looking for 200 of you to join and try this. Give feedback. The winner of this league, provided 200 people join, will get $100 from me. And the team worth the highest amount (with a legal roster throughout) will get $50 from me.

As I write this there are 130 spots left. Sign up now and pick your seven forwards, three defensemen and two goalies!

Dobbernomics is a buy low/sell high game. You not only have to accrue points to win your league, but you start with a $50 million salary and you sell players when their value rises (this happens if a lot of other people “buy” that player) and buy players when their value dips (which happens after a lot of people sell). You balance performance with value. Tons of fun. Join my playoff pool here.

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Today, members of the PHWA submit their ballots for this season’s NHL awards. Once again I had the honor of submitting a ballot and having a say on the Norris, Calder, Hart, Selke and Byng trophies, as well as the All-Star and All-Rookie teams. After the awards are handed out, I’ll post my ballot for you. I will say that I did not vote for McDavid for the Calder. At least, he wasn’t first on my ballot. I also had difficulty with the Byng, since there is no real way to measure it for me other than PIM versus production, as well as “what you hear” with regards to being a good guy or not. The beat writers would have far more knowledge of that particular award than I would.

There’s a spirited debate on the Calder (McDavid vs. Panarin) here in the forum.

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This will be Jaromir Jagr’s 18^th NHL postseason.

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No big surprise here, but Martin Jones has been named San Jose’s starter for the first game. The fact that it’s even a conversation is a testament to just how great James Reimer has been. My guess is that Jones will be on a short leash.

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Detroit’s line combos in practice Tuesday (I’m sure I have LW and RW screwed up below, please excuse):

Zetterberg – Datsyuk – Abdelkader

Tatar – Sheahan – Nyquist

Larkin – Richards – Helm

Athanasiou – Glendening – Andersson

Of note – Andreas Athanasiou is playing. He stepped over a couple of great prospects to get there and that always gets my attention (from a fantasy standpoint). It’s also interesting to see Zetts and Dats reunited…

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For the second time in three years the AHL named TJ Brennan the winner of the Eddie Shore Award for the AHL’s outstanding defenseman. He had 67 points in 67 games for the Marlies. He has 318 points in 441 career AHL games and has played 53 NHL games (13 points). He’s one-dimensional (which to me is just fine, if you coach him right – but what do I know) and at 27 years of age he’ll not get much in the way of future NHL opportunities.

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Cam Ward just finished a season in which he earned $6.8 million. Think about that. He says he wants to return to the Hurricanes. Of course he does – if he went to the market he’d be surprised at nobody giving him offers and instead just getting a couple of training camp invites. If he can sucker Carolina into signing him, then he doesn’t have to worry about that.

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Tyler Johnson will decide Wednesday whether he will be available for Game 1. My hunch is that he will be:

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Anaheim injury updates:

Rickard Rakell – Will play in the first round, possibly for Game 1.

David Perron – Will probably play in the first round, looking like he’ll be back by Game 1, 2 or 3.

Kevin Bieksa – The only update is “soon” but I’m thinking Game 1.

Brandon Pirri – should be available in the first round, likely more towards the end of it.

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Some pretty cool and helpful tips that Rick Roos dug up in today’s Cage Match article. If you don’t usually read his stuff, give this one a look. He has great insight, and some of his ‘lessons’ here are quite enlightening. Ten Lessons Learned from the 2015-16 Fantasy Hockey Season.

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Everyone is tight-lipped about their injured players at this time of year. Of course they are, it only makes sense. Here is some info on Tyler Seguin and Brett Ritchie. Not really telling us much, but better than nothing. Ritchie will rejoin practice soon. Seguin is looking better after two days of practice and still has an outside chance at playing in Game 1.

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This is interesting. Using stats to predict the Stanley Cup Champion: