Happy Monday y'all!

How did everyone's first matchup go?

The Edmonton Oilers are the last of the undefeated (in regulation) teams in the Western Conference and are on a four-game win streak after an opening night overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks. After a couple of defensive nightmarish performances against the Canucks, the Oil have really clamped down on their opponents. 

Edmonton is set to get two of their top-six forwards back this week in Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, however, I am still a believer in Vasily Podkolzin. The winger has shown enough to stick with Connor McDavid on the top line, although we may see his powerplay time decrease. I have received a few asks on Twitter if you should sell high on the Russian winger and I always say everyone has a price. I believe he will still put up 45 points along with good peripheral numbers, but if another manager is offering you the moon for him, you need to explore taking the trade.

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One of the teams the Oilers beat last week, the Anaheim Ducks, had a scare when Cutter Gauthier left their last game against the Calgary Flames with an apparent upper body injury. Joel Quenneville said after the game that they will be re-evaluate on Monday (today) and that their fingers are crossed. I don't know about you, but saying you are going to cross your fingers doesn't sound very confident. On the other hand, if it was something major, I feel like we would have heard about it by now.

If Gauthier does miss any time, rookie Nikita Klepov would most likely be the beneficiary. Losing the offense in Cutter's game would be hard to replace, but Klepov is the perfect filler for any games missed.

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The Los Angeles Kings and Flames are the two winless teams in the West, and the Kings recently lost two top-six forwards: Alex Turcotte and Mats Zuccarello. Without those two in the lineup, Father Time himself, Corey Perry, should see a bump in powerplay time for those in deeper formats, but I think the real winners in terms of more playing time is the top line of Artemi Panarin, Quinton Byfield, and Adrian Kempe. These three will be leaned on even more now. 

Something else I wonder about in LA; Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg have one year left on their contracts and with the New York Rangers recently losing Igor Shesterkin for the season, maybe one gets moved to Broadway. The two clubs made the big trade last season for Panarin, Jonathan Quick is a part of the staff in New York, and the Rangers have started the year off well. Maybe we see something if LA loses a few more games, but then both of these goalies would gain tremendous value as they would be the clear-cut one's on their respective depth charts.

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Mavrik Bourque is another player who got hurt last week as he left his game early on Thursday and did not suit up on Saturday. The former Dallas Star is a player I was big on during the offseason after a trade from the Stars and am still on, he just looks like he needs to adjust to seeing more of the opposition's top players. In his absence, Jonathan Marchessault saw shifts with Steven Stamkos and Ryan O'Reilly and ended up potting his first goal of the season on the powerplay. Marchessault also contributed with three shots on goal and three hits and he is definitely on our streaming and DFS list for this week as a cheap option.

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Victor Olofsson was knocked out of the Vegas Golden Knights game on Tuesday evening and recently put on LTIR. The Swedish winger had four goals and five points in five games and was building a nice home in Vegas' top-nine and first powerplay unit, but he can't stay healthy. With him out of the lineup, one of the many (ha) first rounders that Vegas actually drafted themselves, Trevor Connelly, took that spot on the first extra man unit.

Much like it was during Olofsson's first tenure in Sin City, he got hurt and Pavel Dorofeyev took over first powerplay duties and the Russian never looked back. It is hard to say Connelly will have that same impact, but he is definitely worth the gamble.

If you have any start/sit questions, want to bounce trade ideas, or just want to talk hockey, hit me up on Twitter, @LAM1926. Thanks for reading and have a great week!