Greetings Dobbers and Dobbettes, it’s your favorite fill-in writer back once again to help you either win your championship week or get you to the finals in your league. Last week we used Frozen Tools to help you find the perfect weekend waiver goalie in Alexandar Georgiev and if you heeded our advice then good for you- as he put up .963 save percentage with 27 saves and a win to boot. Not half bad if I do say so myself.

So for this week’s Frozen Tool Forensics I figured I’d challenge myself to have the same success for a skater. Often I’m asked who to add as a streamer, which early in the week is an easy answer- I’d tell them to listen to my Stream Scheme podcast for all your streaming advice. However, I can understand whenever someone is trying to make that late-week push to try to put themselves over the top. The skater streamers that I give out are for assuming that you’re holding that player for the whole week- what about if it’s just one game?

Well lucky for you, my friend, Frozen Tools is here to help you out. First, we start we start where I’d always recommend starting- the handy dandy Schedule Planner 2.0. Just like last week, I create my customer range of Friday through Sunday. The first thing that jumps out at me is that there are 30 teams playing on Saturday, wow! That means that if you need a skater this weekend you probably don’t need him for Saturday, you’re already going to have a full bench as it is.

That means we’re picking from just five games. Can we find a diamond in the rough there? Let’s find out. Expanding my Schedule Planner range to show the games on Thursday as well lets me know that none of the teams playing on Friday are playing on Thursday, so we can’t make any assumptions on who will be starting on any of those Friday games. But I can see that every team playing on Friday plays a back-to-back on Saturday as well, so we may have to account for both starter and backup goalies in those games just to be safe.

One team that I’m crossing off right after is the Arizona Coyotes – they play either Robin Lehner or Marc-Andre Fleury and I don’t want my skater to go up against either one of them. On the flip side however, Vegas sounds very intriguing playing against the Coyotes. Let’s head on over to my favorite Frozen Tool Last Game Lines to see how the lines look in Vegas.

While Chandler Stephenson looks like a pretty great option playing on that top line and top power play, he’s currently already rostered in 36 percent of Yahoo leagues right now, so he may not be available in your league. The name that sticks out to me is Mattias Janmark getting time on the top power play. He should be available in most leagues too, as he’s only rostered in just three percent of Yahoo leagues.

Heading to his Frozen Pool Playoff page, I take a look at his Game Log. If you were just looking at his most recent game his 14:59 TOI and only one shot is nothing to brag about, but luckily I’m able to see in his three games before that he was over 18:00 TOI and 2 shots in each of those three previous games. Mattias Janmark is definitely worth a look to see if he’s available in your league.

The next game would be Colorado against San Jose, which I’ll pass on. I wouldn’t trust any Shark going against Colorado even if Devan Dubnyk is in net, and players available on Colorado would only interest me if Mikko Rantanen were to be out, but it sounds like he’ll be back on Friday.

Let’s move on to the Kings against the Ducks. They play each other four times this week, so far splitting their first two games. I can honestly say I wouldn’t recommend picking up any skater for the Ducks. They change their lines so much it’s hard to say who will be playing where from one game to the next, I’ll pass. The Kings on the other hand are definitely intriguing. Let’s have a look at their last game lines in Frozen Tools.

A couple of guys interest me versus the Kings. The first one I want to look at is Adrian Kempe. Clicking over to his player page on Frozen Tools shows me he has three points in those last two games against the Ducks. But is he truly a Ducks killer? Let’s find out. One of the new fancy gadgets on Frozen Tools is under the "Info/Analysis" tab on a player’s page. On the left hand side it allows us to see how a player does against a certain opponent, shown below.

And wouldn’t you know it, the Ducks already ready to go at the top of the list. I just click Go to see the results.

The range will only let me go as far back as this season and past, there’s always room for improvement, but at least over the past two season I can see that at least as of this season he is indeed a Ducks killer, scoring eight points in just six games against them so far. Sure it’s a short sample size, but it’s like my grandfather always told me- a short sample size is better than no sample size. And it’s true. So if Adrian Kempe is in your league, he’s certainly worth consideration here.

But how about his brand new linemate Quinton Byfield. Surely you know his pedigree by now, but if not, all you have to do is check out his player page and you can see for yourself.

That’s right, 6-4, 215 pounds at just 18 years old, the 2^nd overall pick of the 2020 draft. Need I say more? Okay, well how about nearly 18:00 TOI and 4:20 PPTOI in his first game? Not half bad, and even though he failed to get on the score sheet he still managed to get four shots on goal. And since he’s only six percent rostered on Yahoo right now, he’s someone else we’re going to add to our list of waiver skater candidates this weekend.

The last game on Friday we will check out will be Montreal against Winnipeg. Listen, I’ll be frank with you – I’m just not going to pick up a skater on Montreal. I refuse to pick up a skater that’s being coached by Dominique Ducharme. Don’t get me started on that guy. This is a family friendly website, and I’d like it to remain that way. And yes, that even includes Cole Caufield. No one is immune to coaching ineptitude of Dominque Ducharme. So let’s just move on to Winnipeg.

It stinks that Nikolaj Ehlers is out for the rest of the regular season, but in his absence creates opportunity for his teammates. Let’s take a look at that marvelous Frozen Tool Last Game Lines once again.

Hellooooooo Mason Appleton! From the depths of the third line, the apple man rises to the top line (debateable, sure) and top power play. On the Stream Scheme we have a saying for that- we call it "primo deploymento." And taking a look at his player page we can see that since Nikolaj Ehlers has been out of the lineup that Mason Appleton, while not being able to get a point has had at least 21:00 TOI in each of those last two games. I don’t like that, I love it. And let’s not too upset at him that he didn’t score, the Jets only scored two goals total in those past two games. But going against Dominique Ducharme and the Canadiens? I suspect a splurge of points may occur. Appleton is only three percent rostered in Yahoo leagues, so we’ll add him to our list as he should be available far and wide.

Our last game of the week, literally, is on Sunday as the Detroit Red Wings take on the Tampa Bay Lightning. We don’t know if Andrei Vasilevskiy will be starting that game or not, so I can’t recommend to pick up any Red Wings at this point. The Tampa Bay Lightning are a different story however. Let’s take a look one last time at the Last Game Lines on Frozen Tools. Have I mentioned how much I use Last Game Lines? I think that was at least about ten times just in this article. Learn it, live it, love it people- it’s the most powerful fantasy tool on the planet.

There’s a clear answer here- it’s Alex Barre-Boulet. He’s been filling in for Steven Stamkos recently and looking at his player page we can see that even though he got off to a slow start last week, in his last two games before his game on Thursday he had a goal and six shots in each of those games. And that production is certainly sustainable, as Barre-Boulet is playing on the top line with Ondrej Palat and Brayden Point and on the top power play as well. I don’t love all those facts, I love them. Barre-Boulet is only five percent rostered on Yahoo leagues right now, so he’s definitely a top contender this week.