Hey everyone, hopefully everyone enjoyed their New Year festivities last week and are doing their best to enjoy 2022 so far. From a fantasy hockey perspective though, things have been tumultuous at best. The "set it and forget it" managers will surely be having a bad time this season as we continue to deal with an onslaught of postponed games. Even the most focused fantasy hockey managers have had their hurdles to get over as of late. 

All you do is remain vigilant and try to soldier on by making the best temporary adjustments you can to try and weather this storm of COVID-protocol related issues. Both of my main leagues I am involved with voted on doing a pause over the last two-week period to see if things would get back to normal. We picked things back up this week and it's been tough sledding to say the least. I figured now would be a good time to offer up some temporary band-aid solutions to help plug some of the gaps in your roster. 

Yakov Trenin

Yakov Trenin? Who?  Trenin is a Russian-born left winger who turns 25 years of age next week and he's currently enjoying his best stint of play thus far in his career with the Nashville Predators. He was drafted in the second round by the Preds way back in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. He played numerous seasons down in the AHL with the Predators farm team, the Milwaukee Admirals. He dabbled a bit in the NHL the past couple seasons, and even played a bit in the KHL for SKA St. Petersburg. 

The Predators have been as hot as just about anyone over the last couple months. A few weeks ago I highlighted Tanner Jeannot and how his play has been pretty extraordinary this season. Well, Trenin finds himself on the same line with Jeannot currently, and as of late his play is starting to yield some results. He has six points in his last six games, four of which were goals. The Preds are getting production from all over the place, so Trenin makes an ideal candidate for a temporary solution to fill in for one of your forwards on COVID protocol. 

Outside of his offensive upside, Trenin plays a gritty physical game and racks up a decent amount of hits. He currently has 79 hits through 35 games, which is averages over two hits per game. Trenin is pretty widely available across the board. He is 2% owned in Yahoo leagues, 14% on Fantrax, and 1% owned in ESPN leagues. Next week the red-hot Preds have two home games versus Colorado and Buffalo before heading out on the road for a weekend game versus the Bruins. 

Ilya Mikheyev

Mikheyev has driven Leafs fans crazy pretty much since his arrival with the team back in 2019-2020. He shows so many glimpses of incredible play, but at the same time he always seems to be "snake-bitten" when it comes to his actual production. He's fast, he plays hard, but it seems like he never can finish. During preseason this year, Mikheyev looked sharp, but as luck would have it, he broke his thumb during one of the last preseason games heading into the regular season.

Finally, Mikheyev returned to the team in mid-December, but then half of the Leafs' roster was put into COVID protocol. The Leafs have played three games in the new year thus far, and Mikheyev has three goals and an assist during those contests. Now with the recent news that Mitch Marner has been put into COVID-protocol, Mikheyev will be playing on the second line alongside captain John Tavares and William Nylander. He also will get some looks on the man advantage, so there will be no shortage of opportunities for Mikheyev to rack up points. 

Mikheyev is still out there to get across all formats. He is 12% rostered in Yahoo leagues, 29% in Fantrax, and 5% rostered on ESPN. The Leafs continue their current road trip next week with games against Vegas, Arizona, and St. Louis. 

Matt Roy

If you need help on your back-end, Roy isn't the flashiest option, but he certainly is serviceable. Like the aforementioned Trenin, Roy was also in the draft class of 2015, though Roy was drafted much later (194th overall). After playing three partial seasons for the Ontario Reign (the Kings' AHL affiliate), he finally cracked the Kings' main roster during the 2018-19 season. 

Roy's stats certainly don't jump off the page at you, but he does a little bit of everything. Through 34 games, he has 12 points, all assists. Despite having no goals, he actually shoots the puck at a surprisingly high rate. He has 90 shots on goal so far, which is an average of 2.6 per game, which is a very stellar number. Outside of scoring, he also has 52 hits and 57 blocks, both of which are respectable totals. If you are short d-men from postponements and you need to fill a hole, Roy is a guy who you can plug in and he will at least get you some peripheral stats. Any points would be a pleasant surprise, but consider it an added bonus.

He currently only plays on the Kings' second penalty kill unit, but despite the lack of special teams play, he still is averaging plenty of ice time as he currently averages 21:30 TOI on the season. Roy is pretty widely available across all platforms as well. He is 24% rostered on Yahoo, 29% on Fantrax, and 7% on ESPN. Coming up next week, the Kings play the Rangers and the Penguins at home, and then travel to Seattle to play the Kraken next Saturday.

Well that's it for this week. Hopefully you guys can find a way to get the most starts out of your team and stay competitive until eventually all the players have gone through COVID protocol and then everyone will be back on a level playing field again. It can be frustrating with last-minute changes to players' statuses and trying to get enough goalie starts, or whatever the issue may be. Just try to take things in stride and do your best to keep your team operational. Good luck everyone!