One of my favorite tools here on Dobber Hockey is the list of cold and hot players. 

Last week, we focused on the top 10 cold players. This week, we’re going to focus on those Hot Players that may have won us a couple of weeks recently. 

Now, you don’t need to be a fantasy expert to know players such as Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Mikko Rantanen and Nikita Kucherov are running hot. They are elite players for a reason, and they will put up crazy point streaks. 

The key to using the hot and cold list is to focus on players who are hot and can be picked up from the waiver wire. Alternatively, they can be players who started slow and are starting to heat up, that you can maybe still pick up cheap in a trade. 

One neat option for the Dobber hot tool is that you can also sort it by players active today. This may allow you to grab a player off the waiver wire who can help you win a tight matchup. It can also be useful if you have a tough lineup decision for that day. 

10. Conor Timmins

Timmins is a bit of an interesting case and is the perfect example of a streamer option when he runs hot. In 27 games between Arizona and Toronto last year, he had a 43-point pace despite averaging just 15:05 per night. He played in the AHL this season and has dealt with injuries, but with six points in 11 games, he’s on a 45-point pace while averaging 16:27 per contest. He now has points in five straight games, with a power-play point in back-to-back games. He is also averaging almost two blocked shots per game over this five-game streak. 

9. Stefan Noesen

Noesen has been a popular streamer pick for the last couple of years. He goes through phases where he is a fourth-line player who is on the top power-play unit, or maybe gets a bump to the top-six for a couple of games. Right now, he has eight points in his last 10 games. For this patch of games, he’s been lining up on either Martin Necas‘ or Sebastian Aho‘s line (or with both of them on Sunday). Seven of his last eight points have come with at least one of those players on his line, and this streak has helped boost him to a 50-point player for the first time in his career. 

8. Yegor Chinakhov

Each season has seen a little more progression from the Columbus forward. His eight goals are already a career high, and his 12 points are only two away from matching his all-time best. He’s been exceptional in his last four games, with five goals and seven points, including two points with the man advantage. His ice time has also been up these last few games, as he’s hit 18:50 in three of those four contests. To put that into context, he’s only had one other game this season over 16:30, and was more likely to play 10-12 minutes per contest rather than 17-plus minutes. 

7. Matias Maccelli

Thanks to years of being a poor offensive team, fantasy general managers have been conditioned to shy away from Coyotes. This season, Arizona is middle of the pack at just over three goals per game. Still, Clayton Keller is their only player rostered in at least two-thirds of Yahoo fantasy leagues. There are a lot of sneaky good options in Arizona, including Maccelli. He had his five-game point streak snapped on Saturday night against Buffalo, but he’s been fairly consistent this year, picking up a point in 21 of the team’s 30 games so far. He’s already had three occasions where he had a minimum of a four-game point streak this year. 

6. Devon Levi

There’s some concern about whether handing the reins to a 21-year-old rookie netminder is a good idea, but there’s no doubt that he’s been excellent the last little while. He missed some time due to injury, but in October and November, he had a 3-4-1 record with a 3.73 GAA, a .876 SV% and only two quality starts. In December, he is 3-0-1 with a 1.71 GAA, a .941 SV% and four quality starts. It’s a small sample size in both instances, but with the instability of netminders in fantasy hockey, you take what you can get. 

5. Jakob Chychrun

To say whether his season is disappointing depends on what type of league you’re in. In a bangers league, he’s not performing as great as many might have hoped. His shot rate is down, he has a measly 11 hits in 26 games, and his blocked shots per game are slightly down from last year. However, he’s on pace for 66 points. His best season yet, thanks largely to nine points in his last six games. With 21 points already, he’s about halfway to his career high of 41 points. 

4. Yegor Sharangovich

One of the main pieces of the deal that saw Tyler Toffoli shipped to New Jersey, Sharangovich had a slow start to the season with two points in his first 10 games. He’s making up for that slow start now, with nine points (six of them goals) in his last eight contests. Throughout December, he’s lined up almost exclusively with Elias Lindholm, who is also rebounding from a cold streak. In these eight December games, Sharangovich is averaging almost three shots per game, is on the top power-play unit and is averaging 19:38 per night (by comparison, he averaged 15:30 per night in November). 

3. Gabriel Vilardi

It may have taken a couple of games to get back into game shape after coming back from a knee injury in late November, but he’s been flying recently with seven points in his last four games. Surprisingly, none of those points have come with the man advantage, despite him playing on the top unit. He was a popular pick for a breakout season this year, and while the knee injury slowed him down, he should be able to reach career highs.

2. Mikael Granlund

The Sharks started the season with 11 straight losses, highlighted by back-to-back drubbings when they allowed 10 goals in each game. Since then, they haven’t been that bad. Since that losing streak, they have a 9-9-2 record. They have more points since November 7 than the Devils, Wild, Lightning and Red Wings. In December, heading into Sunday’s action, they were averaging four goals per game, tied for fourth-best in the league. Granlund has been leading the charge for the Sharks, with 14 points in eight December games, tied for second most in December. 

1. Filip Gustavsson

His overall numbers still aren’t the greatest, but there’s no mistaking how great the Wild netminder has been recently. After an opening night shutout, Gustavsson had a horrible set of follow-up games. He allowed seven goals in his next contest, and at least three in nine of 10 games. During that stretch, his record was 1-6-2. In his last seven games, he’s been arguably the best goalie in the league. He’s 6-1 and has allowed a maximum of two goals in each of those games. His goals against average over these seven games has been 1.26, to go along with a .954 SV%. He’s back to the stud netminder many of us went into the season believing he could be.