Morozov retires, key fantasy hockey defensemen, and what you can do to kickstart the trade action in your league …

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The Fantasy Hockey Guide was last updated yesterday. Find me another fantasy guide out there with Devin Setoguchi in the Calgary lineup with a projection. I dare ya! The Draft List was also updated with Band-Aid Boys, plus/minus and power-play points added.

Fixed. Shop is now fixed. Login and/or register on DobberHockey, then go to the shop and make your purchase or download your product.

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A couple of plugs – my Hockey News article Tuesday continued the offseason team- by -team looks. I did a couple of ‘okay’ teams, I guess. If you like awesome, that is. Chicago and Pittsburgh.

And my Puck Daddy piece yesterday went over some key fantasy hockey defensemen.

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Announcement: Right now the DobberHockey site is not connected properly to the shop. So please don’t change your email address on DobberHockey right now, because the shop will just create a new account for you and you won’t have access to your downloads. If you changed your email address recently and can’t access your downloads, simply go to “Your Account” and change it back. Then you can access your downloads again. Everything else with the shop works fine, just that one glitch we’re working on.

If you check the “remember me” box when you login to DobberHockey, and you return to the site later – you will see an error page. Ignore it and refresh. Another glitch we’re working on.

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Did you catch this story on TSN? Corey Sznajder is watching all 1230 NHL games from last season and gathering zone entry information. Some interesting tidbits:

“At the 2013 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, I met Eric Tulsky, who presented research on the value of controlled zone entries (short answer: about twice as valuable to enter with control of the puck rather than dumping it in) and Sznajder had charted a couple hundred games that were included in that study.”

” What is Sznajder charting? Whether a team enters the zone under control of the puck or if it is dumped in and that is done for approximately 150 even-strength zone entries per game. As Sznajder says, “There is also an ‘X’ category, for broken plays, like a puck deflecting off a player in the neutral zone that suddenly turns into a scoring chance.” That’s a very small percentage, but Sznajder admits they drive him crazy.”

There is really so much more to this article – lots of cool tidbits, I recommend reading the whole thing. Here is another tidbit:
“One of the surprises he has found is that there is a team that is a great possession team, the San Jose Sharks, that isn’t particularly strong in the neutral zone. That’s somewhat unexpected.”

Sznajder also has great things to say about Tyler Seguin and Patrice Bergeron, and their ability get the puck across the blue line with the opposition tries to stand up to them.

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I got a ‘mailbag’ letter yesterday for my THN column. I don’t do those anymore, but there is still a link buried in the THN website somewhere and this guy found it. So I thought I would answer it here – since this is oh so much fantasy hockey news on this fine August 27 day:

Me and some friends started a league last year, it was an 8 team head to head league. It was kind of meant as a way to keep in touch and do something all together because some people moved away. But there never was a ton of interaction, as people were content to mostly stick with the players they originally drafted, tinker a bit with waiver moves and very rarely were trades ever made. I just think it would be more fun if people were making moves and talking making moves…How can we set our league so more trading happens?

Matt, Pittsfied, MA

First of all, make it about the glory. That means get a nice trophy for first place and engrave it every year with the fantasy team name and owner name. It will look real nice in a few years and make them care. Second, make it about the money. That means you each throw in 50 or 100 bucks and winner takes 75%, with second taking 25%. Third, make it fun to fire off offers. That means set unlimited trading, but then set a ‘soft’ trade deadline of January 31 – after that date, each team is only allowed three trades. Then a ‘hard’ trade deadline of March 2 or whenever the NHL deadline is. No trading after that date. Limit waiver moves to five per year. If this is a keeper league, increase the keepers and look into adding a new owner every three years until you have 12. The more owners, the more people to make trade offers.

These are just a few quick suggestions, but I’m basing this off of very little information (as you may already have these rules in place, you didn’t say).

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Hey it looks like Laidlaw is still away, fighting fires. So you’ll be stuck with me again tomorrow and probably Friday too. All Dobber, all the time!

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So Aleksey Morozov has retired from hockey at the age of 37. This is going to sound pretty dumb. But it was the Morozov era that got me into the Penguins. It was their first attempt at a rebuild and it was a crappy attempt. But I love getting on board at the bottom and riding the bandwagon to the top. So no, I didn’t like the Penguins when they had Lemieux (the first time) because I was and still am the biggest Gretzky fan. And I didn’t jump on board the Pens when Crosby came along because I was already on board – with Morozov. I loved his potential, I loved Milan Kraft‘s potential, and it was really just a team of nobodies. He had 50 points in 75 games in 2003-04 playing with the likes of Kraft, Rico Fata, Konstantin Koltsov and newcomer Ryan Malone. They had just drafted Fleury and were about to draft Malkin. Yep, one of the worst teams in all of hockey. Morozov went on to become a superstar in the KHL, leading the lead in scoring a couple of times.

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September is just a few days away and Ryan Johansen and Columbus Blue Jackets have agreed that a two-year deal is best. However, the amount per year is where they differ – and that could lead to a holdout. If he misses training camp, and we’ve seen this a million times, his risk of injury increases dramatically. As in – virtually a guarantee. The two sides are $3 million apart. That’s per year.

And here is the thing. His agent, Kurt Overhardt, has had clients miss camp before – Kyle Turris and Brandon Dubinsky. Marty Turco missed the start of camp in 2003, and Ryan Kesler signed an offer sheet on the eve of camp in 2006. So this is starting to become serious and at this point I would consider moving Johansen down my draft sheet just a little.

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Ron Hextall has a lot to say about the prospect defensemen in his organization. Of note, he discusses Shayne Gostisbehere, and how he feels that defensemen could always use more time in the AHL and that they shouldn’t be rushed. You can read Gostisbehere’s profile here.

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“Get over it“

That’s what Craig Berube’s response was to Vincent Lecavalier hearing his name in trade rumors.

“First of all, he needs to come to camp in great shape,” Berube said. “Not in good shape. Great shape just like everybody else. That’s a start if he does. We’ll see at camp.”

Sorry, I just…have no faith in Vinny. None.

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Also, in case you don’t scroll down on the main page often, I have the Band-Aid Boys list up – 2014 edition. So go take a gander.

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NHL expansion to Las Vegas is “a done deal“. We knew it was coming – 32 teams was the end game, no question. My picks for where the NHL ‘should’ expand are Toronto and Quebec. My picks for where the NHL ‘will’ expand are Las Vegas and Seattle. When this does happen – all those players who flocked to the KHL will come flying back – there are new jobs to be had!

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Former Dobber Nation host Brian Kom has a podcast out and it looks at how advanced stats can help you fantasy hockey. You can check it out here.

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Not hockey related (well, kinda – a hockey player is in it), but I had to laugh at these two. First is Homer Simpson’s ice bucket challenge:

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And next – check out the Old Spice guy…