Ramblings – McAvoy on Fire, Scheifele Hurt, Malkin Suspension? And More… (Apr 11)

Dobber

2022-04-11

With another point Sunday afternoon, Erik Haula has 12 in his last 10 games. His Boston stint got off to a tough start with just five points in his first 25 games. But since then, he has 32 in 44. A big part of that is obviously Boston breaking up The Perfection Line. David Pastrnak moving to the line with Taylor Hall has gotten Hall going – and Haula won the lottery to be their centerman. He's a good, steady faceoff man and he's always had this kind of talent. But he's such a Band-Aid Boy he could never really get it going. Boston really lucked out getting a full healthy season from him.

Charlie McAvoy is really going nutty out there. I know I'm focusing on the losing team here, as Washington beat the Bruins, but there was nothing from Washington that struck me from a fantasy standpoint so I'm going to stick with Boston here. McAvoy is on an eight-game points streak and has 24 in his last 23. Oddly enough, his PP production has actually gone down in the second half. So what's been the difference? Well, his partner has changed from Matt Grzelcyk to Mike Reilly or Hampus Lindholm. Or, in the case of Sunday – Derek Forbort. So…really just anyone but Grzelcyk. At any rate, McAvoy now has a full-season pace of 62 while facing the toughest Quality of Competition. He's still only 24. I didn't have him on my list of defensemen who could get a point-per-game, but I'm starting to open my mind to the idea.

Speaking of Grzelcyk, he left the game early with an upper-body injury. McAvoy ended up playing over 28 minutes as a result.

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Evgeni Malkin got four minutes for this. But there is talk that he should get three games (using the Auston Matthews incident as a guide there):

Sidney Crosby scored the OT winner and it was a beauty. It marked point No. 1400, just three behind Alex Ovechkin for 21st on the all-time list. Ovechkin had a goal Sunday with two seconds left into an empty net. Crosby was in on all three goals. This is the TO one here, a real beauty.

Rickard Rakell's tenure with the Penguins has been wildly unpredictable so far. Three assists on Sunday. But in 11 games with Pittsburgh, he was pointless in eight of them – but the other three were multi-point games. His eight goose-egg games he was a combined minus-9. In his three other games he had eight points and was plus-6. So we're still flipping a coin when it comes to keeping him active, but if Malkin indeed gets suspended then Rakell may be one that you sit for the duration.

Matt Duchene scored again and now has 38 goals and 75 points. Both are career highs. The most surprising thing? It's not a contract year! We didn't buy his early-season production. The bubble was going to pop. Except – it didn't. And in fact, Duchene's production has increased even further. His 5on5 S% is too high at 11.5% and he is the top forward on the team in terms of offensive-zone starts. So of course next season will be lower than this one. But he's going to get 90 points this year, and it's hard to imagine a player following up 90 points with anything under 70. So I consider 70 pretty safe for 2022-23 with this guy. And after seeing what David Perron has done after the age of 30, I won't rule anything out. Because let's be honest – 10 years ago we felt that Duchene had way, way, way higher upside than Perron.

Roman Josi was held without a point for the second consecutive game. And even with that, his pace is still to hit 102. The last two times that he went two games without a point, he followed it up with a multi-point game.

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Owen Power is skating with the Sabres but he didn't play on Sunday. They could have used him. The Sabres now have eight games left, so there is no danger of losing a year of control. I wouldn't be surprised if he's in for next game.

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The Kings blew an early 3-0 lead and gave up six straight goals. I'm loving the offense in the NHL this year – a 3-0 lead means absolutely nothing. How many times have we seen big leads blown this season? Especially over the past few weeks.

Viktor Arvidsson has been in a slump, but he has fired 12 SOG over the past two games. He's pushing.

Defenseman Sean Durzi picked up an assist Sunday to give him nine points in his last 12 games. He's getting killed in plus/minus, but as far as points go the 23-year-old is on fire. And his BLKS have kicked ass two – nine consecutive games with at least two. He has 26 BLKS in nine games.

After missing four straight games with a UBI, Matt Boldy returned to the Wild lineup and tallied two points. He has five in the last three games that he's played, back with his usual linemates Kevin Fiala and Frederick Gaudreau.

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Jordan Staal scored a hat trick against the Ducks just two games after scoring two against Buffalo and three games after notching a pair of assists. After 24 points in 67 games he gets seven in four. There's no obvious reason for this heater – none of this was on the power play, and his linemates remain unchanged (Nino Niederreiter and Jesper Fast).

John Gibson the last three seasons:

48-70-22, with a 3.05 GAA, 0.904 SV%, 44.3% QS and -25.563 GSAA. This season his goals saved above average is an ugly -12.02. Meanwhile, Anthony Stolarz is +5.94 and his numbers are stellar. AND he has a winning record! Gibson has five more years after this one on a contract that pays him $6.4M AAV.

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Kevin Lankinen followed up two straight consecutive Quality Starts with a terrible one on Sunday. It was the first time all season that he had back-to-back QS, and the thinking is that the steady workload was turning things around for him. But no. I'd be shocked if they bring him back next season. Both he and Collin Delia are UFAs this summer.

UFA goalies Chicago should target: Ville Husso, Darcy Kuemper. The pickings are slim after those two, since I doubt Marc-Andre Fleury returns. There's Thomas Greiss, Jack Campbell and Joonas Korpisalo. After that, I don't like any who are left. Makes you appreciate what Arizona has done – looking outside the NHL for their two goaltenders.

With two more points Sunday, Tyler Seguin has 32 in his last 36. Dallas somehow clawed their way back into a playoff position and I think Seguin finding his mojo was the key part of that run. It's huge when a team gets a second scoring line rolling. His linemate Jamie Benn has 22 points in 23 games.

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I looked at a couple of "playoff odds" websites to get a feel for them. And Dallas is above 85% in both of them. Los Angeles is above 75% on both sites. Vegas is 44% on one site, 34% on the other. And the only other team with a shot is Vancouver at 5% according to both websites. Fourteen teams are pretty much 100%.

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Jake Sanderson was not in the Ottawa game Sunday. He is still recovering from surgery on his hand. The Sens have 10 games left in their season and my hunch is that he'll play the final game or two.

With 11 points in his last six games and 23 in his last 19, Nik Ehlers has turned his season around to the point where his points-per-game average is now the second best of his career (0.91 vs. 0.98 last year). We've been waiting three or four years for that season when he flirts with 80. He needs to stay healthy, but if he can do so I think 2022-23 will be that year.

Very, very concerning, this hit on Mark Scheifele:

He went straight to the dressing room and after the game the coach said that he will not play in Monday's game and they will know more tomorrow. That tells me either an arm fracture or a separated shoulder. I sure hope I'm wrong. He has 25 points in his last 17 games and has 70 points this season. Morgan Barron moved into Scheifele's spot on the top line. Barron was part of the return for Andrew Copp.

Signs of life? Erik Brannstrom has five points in his last nine games, with three of them coming on the power play. His owners are growing impatient, but don't forget that he's only 22.

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Oskar Steen signed a two-year, one-way deal with the Bruins. Yes, it was for the NHL minimum, but the fact that it's a one-way deal. Likely a potential third-liner, but his numbers in the AHL and his size (5-9) indicates that there is an "over-achiever" factor that makes me wonder if three or four years down the road he gives us more than expected. If he starts teasing with flashes of production next year (in brief spurts), you can expect him to quickly become a "Dobber Darling".

Matthew Beniers, Kent Johnson, Bobby Brink and Nathan Smith are notable names that each signed contracts over the weekend. We'll see all four of them at some point before the season is done. Of the four, Johnson has the highest upside and to me stands the best chance of giving us something the fastest.

I've been working for the last six weeks on going over every single prospect in my template. I'm just about done, which is why this month's rankings are late. In these rankings I have graduated a ton of prospects. The next list – not finalized so there will be a bit more movement yet – but in the upcoming list I have Beniers up to seventh, Johnson second, Brink shoots up the list to 50th and Smith sits at 86th.

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We have launched our new DFS subscription. These tools have a very solid track record. And for the late portion of the season and playoffs, we are offering $20 off. Avid DFS players will more than make this money back over the remainder of the season I'm sure. Right now it is for Draft Kings, but we will have other DFS tools available over time. Yahoo daily fantasy tools are now ready!

Check out DFS Central.

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In the spirit of the above, I am launching a new section on DobberHockey. We are going to increase our content for DFS and sports wagering. The "bare bones" hub of this section can be found here. I will have links and more content soon. In the meantime, if you or someone you know writes blogs or social media posts about DFS or game lines and want more exposure – please reach out to me here and let me know how you can contribute. We'd like to have some content for during the week on top of our current Saturday slate.

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See you next Monday.

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