Top 10 injuries that screwed your season

It’s championship week for many fantasy leagues but for many of us, our seasons were wiped out when our elite players spent too much time on the injured reserve.

I get it. Injuries happen. Every year there’s tales of players that torpedoed our fantasy hockey hopes. We could have been a contender if only that guy’s groin had not managed to explode. This year has been no different. Keep in mind we’re looking at the impact on fantasy squads. Sidney Crosby missing the first six games of the year should not have sunk your season.

Below are 10 players whose injuries helped screw your season.

10. Max Domi

While most of the Coyotes have struggled this year, Domi started the season okay with 16 points in 26 games. Nothing too concerning as it is pretty much his same pace from his rookie season. Then he injured his hand, needed surgery and missed two months of action. Since coming back from injury he’s been pretty much back to his same points-per-game pace. That’s not what you want to see in a player’s second season as you hope to see an improvement in his numbers.

9. Alex Galchenyuk

Sometimes an injury occurs at the worst possible time for a player. That was the case for Galchenyuk. He had 23 points in the first 25 games of the season and had excellent chemistry with Alexander Radulov. It seemed like this was going to be his big breakout season until a knee injury caused Galchenyuk to miss some games. He struggled when he got back into the lineup. In his first 12 games back, he had six points and was a minus-nine. Then Michel Therrien was fired, and Galchenyuk seems to be getting back on track.

8. P.K. Subban

There was much hype for Subban after his trade to Nashville. One fantasy magazine went so far as to predict Subban would lead all defensemen in points and win the Hart trophy. Poolies were also hoping for a great year as he was the third defenseman selected in Yahoo drafts. But not much has gone right for Subban since landing in Nashville. He is normally on the second power play unit and has struggled mightily at times. Missing 16 games hasn’t helped and once he came back, he had just one point in eight games.

7. Craig Anderson

Anderson wasn’t injured but did miss a lot of time because of his wife’s battle against throat cancer (which was going well as of the last update) so I’m going to include him in this list. Anderson is one of those players you can set your calendar to as he alternates good years and bad years. This year was supposed to be a great year. And his numbers kind of prove this: a 22-10-2 record with four shutouts, a 2.32 GAA and a .927 SV%. But he simply didn’t play in enough games to make much of a fantasy impact.

6. Jonathan Huberdeau

The thing with Huberdeau being injured is that his injury impacted the rest of the Panthers a lot more than we anticipated. Huberdeau missed the first four months of the season and has been excellent since his return. In those 51 games that he missed, the highest scoring Panther was Vincent Trocheck with 34 points. Since Huberdeau has returned, almost every single Panther has seen an increase in his points-per-game pace.

5. Jack Eichel

Much like Huberdeau, many of the Sabres’ production was awful when Eichel missed the first two months of the season. No Buffalo player managed to have a point-per-game pace of more than 0.65 in those 21 games. Since Eichel has been back, Ryan O’Reilly, Evander Kane, Kyle Okposo and Sam Reinhart are all past that threshold. Eichel himself has Eichel has 53 points in 53 games and has almost equalled last year’s production despite playing 28 less games.

4. Kris Letang

Letang is the best fantasy hockey defenseman when healthy. If he could play a consistent 82 games a year, he’d be my first defenseman choice every single year as he contributes in every fantasy category imaginable. I was hoping he’d be healthy this year as he played 69 and 71 games the previous two years. But this year he has reverted back to his old self. He’s missed a couple of weeks in October, December, January and has now been out since Feb. 21.

3. Evgeni Malkin

Fed up with Malkin’s injury history, I traded him in my points-only keeper pool for Mark Stone and Jakub Voracek. So of course Malkin went off for 72 points in 62 games and looked to be on his way to a full 82-game season. But the problem with Malkin is the timing of his injuries. He’s always out during fantasy playoffs, and this year was no exception. He’s cost a lot of fantasy teams the championship, including Dobber himself.

Well, this Malkin injury will cost me one title. Was hoping to win two this year, seemed like both were in the bag. But nope.
Anyone else?

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) March 25, 2017

2. Jonathan Quick

Quick was the fourth goalie taken on average in Yahoo leagues, usually with a high second-round pick. He didn’t even last a period before he suffered a lower body injury that cost him four-and-a-half months. It was worse if Quick owners didn’t snap up Peter Budaj off the waiver wire. Quick made it back in time for fantasy hockey playoffs, but many owners already had their seasons destroyed long before that.

1. Steven Stamkos

Stamkos has missed so much time that I almost forgot all about him when jotting down names for this list. He’s turned into a certifiable Band-Aid boy as he’s had to deal with serious medical issues in three of the last four seasons. This year was a torn lateral meniscus that required surgery. He was selected on average seventh overall in Yahoo one-year leagues, and owners got a total of 17 games out of him.