Discussing the contract extensions for Greiss and Vigneault, plus post-All-Star variance in scoring.

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Head-to-head leagues are among the most popular setups in fantasy hockey but the small-sample nature of them subjects you to a great deal of variance. In one of my H2H leagues, we have a points-based system. I’ve racked up the third most fantasy points in the league, literally 0.1 point back of second and yet I’m tied for fifth because I have continually been forced to play the top point producing team in most weeks. I also suffered through the early struggles of Vincent Trocheck, Justin Faulk and Mike Hoffman and was without Jack Eichel for the first month and a half. My spot in the standings does not reflect my team’s overall talent. Hopefully it will turn it on in time for the H2H playoffs.

Of course, in a lot of ways the H2H playoffs are a crapshoot. Your job is to make it there, hopefully not too far down the standings to help avoid stiffer matchups and then win three or four straight coinflips. The deeper your league, the greater a disparity you can create, which increases your odds of success but you still have to avoid the buzzsaw that is luck over a seven-day stretch.

Sometimes, it’s just unavoidable. For example, guys like Mark Scheifele, Trocheck, Jussi Jokinen, JG Pageau and Joe Colborne spent much of last season on the waiver wire only to be a top-50 scoring forward after the All-Star break.

Scheifele was the third best scorer after the All-Star break and in a lot of leagues you could have gotten him for free! Maybe you jumped on him when Bryan Little got hurt. If so, you got a steal. It wasn’t necessarily luck that you scooped him up. But it was somewhat lucky that Little’s injury created the opportunity.

These guys weren’t the only ones to pop up among the league leaders post-All-Star. In fact, over the past three seasons less than half (48%) of the top 50 forwards pre-All-Star were also top 50 guys post-All-Star. That’s a huge attrition rate.

We see a similar, although less pronounced effect among defensemen. Of the top 30 defensemen scorers, pre-All-Star, 57% of them were also in the top 30 post-All-Star over the past three seasons.

Some of this is because of injury. Others slide because of slumps or poor luck. Others simply get passed by hotter options, while lingering just outside the top 50/30. Whatever the cause, if the current trend holds, a bunch of guys who have flown under the radar are going to pop up between now and the rest of the season, while many of your best scorers are going to fall off. Here’s your list of top 50 forwards and top 30 defensemen:

If you’ve been reading along all season, you can probably guess who I like to drop out. I have been sour on secondary talents on the Rangers and Wild. Not because of talent but because of opportunity.

The Wild have started to tilt towards balancing the power play time between their first and second units. I normally don’t agree with this strategy but sometimes it works. It worked for the Florida Panthers last season and is working for the Wild this year. That means they can have a bunch of guys score 50-60 points but they might not have a single scorer reach 65-70 points.

It’s also very difficult to sustain having multiple lines clicking over the span of a full season so I won’t be shocked to see Koivu or Granlund tail off. Hell, maybe they stay hot and it’s Staal and Coyle who slip. The door is opening for the latter option as the Wild’s top line cedes PP minutes.

As for the Rangers, I like their top unit guys like Zuccarello, Stepan and McDonagh, not so much the secondary guys like Holden, Hayes and Miller.

I could also see the Blue Jacket guys start to slide off this list. Over the last month their vaunted PP has clicked on just 17.9% of chances, 19^th in the league. Maybe this is random, or maybe teams are adjusting. You can bet more teams will adjust. Coaches just had a long weekend to pour over game film.

We’ve seen the Blue Jackets experiment with a two-defenseman look on the PP lately, which has benefitted Seth Jones but is reflective of the struggles they have had.

Columbus isn’t so dominant at even strength that they can afford to not be elite on the PP. Their top scorers seem set to fade down the stretch. Perhaps it won’t be right off this list but certainly they’ll be dropping.

As for risers, I’ve been trumpeting slumping stars like Patrice Bergeron, Anze Kopitar and Justin Faulk all season. Those are among the few I feel will have a strong finish to the season but there will no doubt be some surprises.

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Isles sign Greiss to three year, $10 million extension

— Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) January 31, 2017

Welp. There goes my dream of Thomas Greiss getting dealt to a contender. On the other hand, the Islanders are on a roll so maybe he doesn’t need a trade to continue his fantasy relevance.

This news almost assures that Jaroslav Halak will remain buried. I can’t imagine another team taking a flyer on him with one year left on his deal. Of course, Greiss (or JF Berube) could get hurt, which would bring Halak back into the fold but that has now become the only situation where he returns this season.

Then again, in nine games at the AHL level, Halak has a 6-1-2 record with a 2.03 goals-against average and a 0.927 save percentage. His confidence is certainly being rebuilt. Maybe that makes him attractive enough that someone takes a flyer, the extra year on his deal be damned.

If nothing else, I wonder if Halak suddenly becomes an option for Las Vegas in the expansion draft. I also wonder if the Islanders are happy to keep him knowing that he’ll be the goalie they expose in the expansion draft and if he isn’t selected could be traded in the off-season. Brian Elliott netted a second-round pick last summer. Halak might fetch something in that ballpark. And in the meantime, Halak makes a nice insurance policy in case of injury.

Shifting the focus back to Greiss. This deal should make him the undisputed starter for the Islanders. He’s 31, right around the age when we start to worry about wear and tear but he hasn’t seen much action over the years. Since turning pro as an 18-year-old back in 2003-04 he’s made 378 appearances plus a handful more in international action. Let’s call it an even 400 games over 14 years of action. That’s 28.6 appearances a year. He should hold up like a much younger man. This may be similar to how Tim Thomas didn’t emerge as a starter until he was 32.

Of course, Greiss may not have a strangle-hold on the starting gig. Anything can happen, as we saw with Halak, who went from World Cup hero to dud in a matter of weeks. Any goalie can come unglued. Since Greiss’ deal isn’t so expensive that the Islanders wouldn’t consider benching him, he’s vulnerable to being overtaken. It’s the same way Michal Neuvirth has kept stealing games from Steve Mason over the past couple of years.

The Islanders are hoping this deal works out similarly to the Cam Talbot contract for Edmonton. If it does, they’ll have a bargain on their hands for the next few seasons. This is good news because the Islanders have a long-term cap sheet that looks something like a minefield. And they have John Tavares’ unrestricted free agency looming in 2018.

Rick DiPietro will remain their most expensive goalie, even if he is no longer on their roster or cap. He is the ultimate reminder why you don’t want to commit long term to goaltending. A three-year deal is just right.

This won’t necessarily set the market for this summer’s crop of UFA goaltenders but it should be considered a reference point. Teams have been getting smarter about the money they blow in free agency but they also have to weigh in how desperate things can get without good goaltending.

I wouldn’t be looking to give out much more than what Greiss just received for any of Mason, Neuvirth, Ben Bishop, Ryan Miller, Jonathan Bernier, Brian Elliott, Chad Johnson, Anders Nilsson, Scott Darling, Mike Condon or Peter Budaj. A couple of those guys will be hits. I am a big believer in Mason, Bishop and Elliott to name a few but I’m not breaking the bank for them.

Maybe some team will talk themselves into one of these candidates. It’s not hard to get up to $6 M annually if you think that one guy is the “must-have” free agent on the market.

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Word is that Alain Vigneault has received a contract extension through 2019-20. This seems justified. The Rangers have overachieved despite an overpaid, porous defense corps. It also doesn’t really matter how much a big market team spends on coaching. They could go into the tank, fire Vigneault before his extension even kicks in and it wouldn’t affect their bottom line the way it would a small market team. Coaches don’t affect the salary cap so it really doesn’t matter how much they have left on their deal. It’s all public perception.

Really, where things get dicey is when coaches are in lame duck situations on the last season of their deals like Claude Julien, Lindy Ruff, Glen Gulutzan and Ken Hitchcock currently are. Vigneault already had one more year left on his deal before this extension kicks in but this solidifies his standing in the locker room and in the public sphere for next season.

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Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw.