The DobberBaseball Fantasy Guide is out now and fully updated

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Afternoon updates – Nashville has claimed Zach Boychuk off of waivers. He will be competing with Bobby Butler for the chance to revive his career. I think one of them will, and would put my money on Butler.

Also, Mike Green has been placed on IR and is ineligible to play until March 7.

Chip Alexander reports that Dan Ellis is “ill” (bad timing) and that Justin Peters is getting the start. You can get all the starting goalie info over at Goalie Post and I have also put “email updates” on for half price – so just two bucks you can get those emergency emails sent to your smartphone so you can save your team when last minute changes arise.

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Angus noted on Twitter last night that Mikhail Grabovski‘s offensive zone start rate is at 33%. Hard to put up points when that’s the case. He’s officially a checking-line center this year and doing a good job of it – but that doesn’t help fantasy owners any.

We’re finding more and more offensive players taking on defensive roles, I’m finding. Another case in point – Michael Frolik, who has become a stud penalty killer. But as good as these guys are on the other side of the puck, their talent is still being wasted and there no amount of words are stats can convince me otherwise. Anyone can be trained to become a checker (hell, if they trained Frolik and Grabovski, then they can train anyone). But you can’t teach scoring.

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As if the Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t have enough offensive options in the pipeline, they have a prospect by the name of Ondrej Palat, who tallied 13 points in his last eight AHL contests and has 44 points in 49 games on the year. He was recalled by TB and in his first NHL game picked up an assist. I wouldn’t say he’s leapfrogged over Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn or Brett Connolly, but his presence makes things tough for the likes of Nikita Kucherov, Vladislav Namestnikov, J.T. Brown and Richard Panik. I’d love to see in a crystal ball which of these guys are doing well in 2016. I just rang off eight very viable names.

Meanwhile, that other stud prospect Cory Conacher stumbled a little, posting a minus-3.

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My last two columns for The Hockey News can be found here:

Fantasy Hockey Top 25 Forward Prospects Part 1

Fantasy Hockey Top 25 Forward Prospects Part 2

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I love it when you’re watching the game with seconds left and a cheesy empty-netter gains you three points. I own Neal, Malkin and Letang – Malkin had the empty-netter dead to rights, but he chose to dish to Neal for the goal. I think he knew I owned Neal and would benefit more if he did it that way ;)

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Pet peeve time again. Does anyone read “power rankings”? Every site has them, it seems, and I just can’t fathom who would click the link to read on. If I want to see the NHL standings, I’ll just go to NHL.com and click “standings”. That’s the best, most accurate power rankings there is.

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My hunch is that we’ll be able to dress Miikka Kiprusoff by the end of the weekend. He’s getting closer.

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Kyle Palmieri‘s UBI kept him out of last night’s game. He’s “feeling OK today again” and it’s probably “short term”.

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I drafted Jiri Tlusty in two pools this year. After two weeks I dropped him. I’m usually more patient than that. Damn.

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The Oilers acquired Mike Brown from the Leafs, giving them a conditional fourth-round pick (it becomes a third rounder if the Oilers make the playoffs). If you remember, the Leafs got Frazer McLaren off the waiver wire, giving nobody a conditional draft pick. I’m sure if the Oilers had waited, they would have been able to scoop a similar player for free off the wire. Dobber for GM!

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Ah, now the NHL season feels real – Martin Havlat is out with a LBI. Consider him day-to-day.

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Although the Preds claimed Bobby Butler, they scratched him from last night’s game.

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An update on Valtteri Filppula – he is skating lightly, but probably won’t play this week.

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Jason Arnott getting closer to joining the Blues – he is on their road trip and practicing with them.

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The NHL announced that all 14 non-playoff teams will now be eligible for the top pick in the draft. Previously, only the bottom four teams had a shot. Full odds right here.

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Interesting story here for Star Wars fans – Ilya Bryzgalov had a Star Wars themed mask, but Yoda’s lightsaber was orange – which was close enough to red to make LucasFilm reach out and tell the Bryzgalov camp that the mask implied Yoda went over to the dark side. They repainted the lightsaber green.

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Beau Bennett had three points in his last four games, but the Penguins sent him back to the AHL anyway. And the game in which he didn’t have a point – he had three shots on goal. I hope he gets a fair shot in camp come October, particularly because I just drafted him last weekend.

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An interesting list compiled by Puck Daddy – players who have yet to score this year, but should have.

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With his hat trick last night, Jeff Carter has 14 goals…and two assists! Now THAT’S a Cy Young Award winner.

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Ri-DONK-ulous:

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Kaleta got five games for this, here is the highlight if you didn’t catch it. Brad Richards missed practice because of “soreness” :