We have officially entered the dog-days of the hockey season. You know, those middle forty games. The ones that beat up players and teams alike; and leave your injury reserve overflowing. Just ask the Montreal Canadiens (yikes!).

With injuries comes the need for replacements. Your ability to claim a good replacement is directly related to the depth and settings of your pool. A 12-team pool will have 40-50 extra players available compared to a 14-team pool. Some salary-cap pools have penalties on all drops, some have no drop penalties, while others allow restrictions on free drops. They're all different and create different challenges). I won't discuss scoring. There are too many variations.

Oh, and then there are pools that give salary cap relief for injured players and others that don't. Losing a Nikita Kucherov has the potential to be crippling if you can't replace that $9.5M.

This week we'll take a dive into the free agency bin, and waiver-wire and take a look at some low-cost replacements. For our purposes, we'll assume there is no penalty, for the most part anyway. I'm sure I will digress and make a note here or there about potential penalties.

Some of these names you can look at as potential second half sleepers as well. That you might want to hold onto and hope they exceed early season expectations.

Sean Durzi (D) – Los Angeles Kings – $809K

6 Games Played, 1 – Goal, 4 Assists, 4 Power Play Points

This depends on the depth of your prospect pool, Durzi may be sitting on someone's minors roster already. He was originally called up as an injury replacement. He has made the most of his opportunity and forced managements hand to waive Kale Clague.

He was the prize in the Jake Muzzin to Toronto trade and we're starting to see why. Expectations need to be tempered. There is no guarantee he will stay with the team all year or continue seeing consistent time on the power play. He's a hot hand for the Kings right now and when you get dinged with an injury on the blue-line, this is what you're looking for. A cheap, quality filler.

Corey Perry (RW) – Tampa Bay Lightning – $1M

Last 8 Games Played, 6 Goals, 3 Assists, 25 shots, 2 Power Play Points

He started the year ice-cold with only one assist in his first 16 games with Tampa Bay. Even at $1M some owners cut him loose. Since then, Perry has turned into the player we saw down the stretch and in the playoffs for Montreal.

You might want to consider just finding room to keep Perry for the year. He won't maintain close to a point-per-game pace, but he will give you good depth scoring at a cheap, cheap cost. He’s owned in only 13% of Fantrax leagues currently. Odds are, most of those are salary cap leagues.

This is exactly the type of injury replacement you should be looking for in points only and multi-cat leagues. He is going to give you a really good baseline. I would not put much weight in the first sixteen games. They're done, they're over, they're what has made him available. On a deep Tampa Bay team, a 40-point pace the rest of the way is a reasonable expectation. Not bad for a million bucks off the wire.

Ondrej Kase (RW) – Toronto Maple Leafs – $1.25M

26 Games, 10 points, 4 points last 5 games

I watch a lot of Toronto games. Kase is always dangerous and noticeable. His point totals are not entirely indicative of his play to date.

As I've mentioned in previous articles, players that suffer severe injuries often need significant time after they return to play, to return to their previous form. Vincent Trocheck is a prime example. That might also be the case with Kase.

With Mitch Marner out for 3-4 weeks, Ondrej Kase has been moved up to the first power-play unit. His hockey-IQ is very high. He makes a lot of small, subtle plays that create dangerous scoring chances, avoids turnovers and keeps plays alive.

What is really fun on the fan side of things is watching him play alongside his junior linemate David Kampf. Good chemistry never dies. If you want to take a flyer on someone, Kase is as good a bet as any. I suspect we'll see him start to convert more of his chances and an increase in production.

If he produced at over a 50-point pace the rest of the year it wouldn't surprise me.

Andreas Johnsson (LW) – New Jersey Devils, $3.4M

24 Games, 9 Goals, 9 Assists, 45 shots

He's the most expensive and most owned player listed so far. . At 199 career games played in most pools he no longer qualifies as a prospect. He's smack dab on top of his breakout threshold which is why I’ve included him.

He's off to a roaring start, on pace for a career year. He'll cost a bit more than other players but you should also get a higher return. Take note as the best could be to come.

Currently on a 61-point pace this will likely dip by the end of the year but not by a lot. Looking a lot like a 55-plus point year is in store for Johnsson. I suspect his ownership will surpass 50% by early January unless he goes ice-cold.

Valeri Nichushkin (RW) – Colorado Avalanche, $2.5M

Last 9 games – 5 goals, 4 assists, 22 shots

Sitting at 50% ownership he won't be readily available across the most leagues. Yet he was plucked off the wire in my 14-team pool just last week. So I know some of you will find him. Colorado is scoring in bunches right now which benefits almost everyone on the team.

He's the perfect type of player to grab for an injury replacement. He has never had a 40-point season in his NHL career so don't bank on this streak continuing in the long term. But he's a perfect short-term boost. We’ll see how long he can ride this hot streak

Nichushkin is averaging a hit and two shots per game, so he gives solid mult-cat coverage as well. You can't ask for much more than .9 point per game average over the last month off the waiver. At $2.5M most teams should be able to squeeze him in.

Anthony Stolarz (G) – Anaheim Ducks – $950K

4 Wins, 2 Losses, 2 Shutouts, 2.42 Goals Against Average, .928 Save Percentage

The upstart Ducks just keep rolling. Goaltending hasn't been the issue in Anaheim over the last five years. John Gibson is about as good as they come. But when a team scores two goals per game, it doesn't matter who is in net.

This year, the Ducks are scoring and they're winning. The strong goaltending also continues. The Ducks have a back-to-back coming up this weekend & then two big games the following week. In the short term Stolarz is good bet to grab a couple starts for you.

His strong play to date will allow the Ducks to rest Gibson a bit more, which is a huge plus. It'll keep him fresher down the stretch when they'll need him the most.

He won't give you a tonne of games, but the one's he does give you will be solid.

Thanks for reading, 'till next week