Thoughts on Marchand’s expanding fantasy value, MacKinnon getting on the board, Evander Kane’s return to the lineup and more…

 

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LAST DAY – to take advantage of my refunding you your earlier Fantasy Guide /Ultimate/ Keeper Pack purchase. Details here

 

Dobber’s latest for Puck Daddy – find it here. Great picks on the waiver wire for you

 

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Thumbs up to Brad Marchand who had one heck of a game when he was questionable to even go last night. Marchand tied the game up late in the third and then added the overtime winner. You hate to call any game against the Sabres a big game but the Bruins really needed that one and Marchand delivered. Big game player.

 

Marchand was skating on the third line with Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg. The Bruins shuffled up the lines with Chris Kelly moving up to play wing with Patrice Bergeron. What’s really promising is the power play time Marchand has been seeing lately. He might have another gear for fantasy value yet.

 

On defense, the big minutes went to Dougie Hamilton and Dennis Seidenberg who each notched assists. No surprises there given the injuries on the backend. Seidenberg, in particular had a fantasy impact with five SOG to go along with that assist. He did so with just 17 seconds of power play time. Impressive.

 

Joe Morrow, one of the Bruins' call-ups skated 17:51 with no power play time. Instead it was another call-up, David Warsofsky who got the power play chance but he came up empty. Not even a SOG for Warsofsky. Despite the lack of power play time, Morrow managed four SOG, which ain't bad for his first NHL game.

 

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The Sabres continue to get solid goaltending from their duo of Jonas Enroth and Michal Neuvirth. They might only win 20 games between the two of them, mind you, and they'll almost certainly be rocking GAA around 3.00 but they are stopping enough pucks for some solid save percentage numbers. There's value here if your league counts saves at all.

 

Congratulations are in order for the Sabres, by the way. Drew Stafford's power play goal to open the scoring was the Sabres' first score on the man advantage this season. That leaves just the Minnesota Wild as the lone team that has yet to score a man up. So they've got that going for them.

 

That goal was also Stafford's first of the season. You're tempted to like Stafford because he's a top line option but the Sabres are just so terrible at scoring you can't make the investment. And really, the reason that the Sabres are so bad at scoring is because Stafford is on their top line.

 

I really do feel for Tyler Ennis though. He had a goal and an assist. The assist was his first of the season. Just not a lot to work with. I don't know that Ennis should necessarily be a #1 center, mind you, but he's got enough skill to score more than 60 points in a season. It won't happen with these linemates. Ennis might flirt with an Ovechkin-lite sort of line with something like 30 goals and 10 assists this season. It'll probably be closer to 20 and 20 but I want to see that 30/10 so bad.

 

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I'm sorry to say I only caught the tail end of the Jets-Devils game but wow that was a lot of fun.

 

Ondrej Pavelec played really well in goal taking away several late-game opportunities from Jaromir Jagr. Apparently Pavelec had a really nice save on Patrik Elias earlier in the game as well. Credit where it's due. Pavelec was solid.

 

Evander Kane made his return to the lineup for the Jets. He looked okay in his return but I wasn't overly impressed. Not that I was expecting for Kane to be flying out there coming off the knee injury. I was just hopeful we might see the wrecking ball Kane we know and love.

 

Instead, it was Kane's linemate, Blake Wheeler, who impressed the most. Not surprising though as he's the Jets best player. He scored the lone goal and had five SOG. Just another night at the office.

 

Mark Scheifele is lucky to have Wheeler and Kane as his wingers right now. We haven't seen results yet but I might try to add him off the wire in a deeper league to see what he might provide.

 

We haven't seen results yet but I swear they are coming for Dustin Byfuglien. Skating on the third line with Mathieu Perreault and rookie Adam Lowry isn't much but he gets to play the point on the power play, which is where he'll make his money as the season rolls along. Buy low!

 

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As mentioned, Jagr had some excellent opportunities to win this one for the Devils. It just wasn't to be. You've got to be impressed with just how often Jagr is the Devils' best player at his age. It'll be a sad day when he finally hangs them up.

 

New Jersey had their lines scrambled at the end as they pushed for the late equalizer so I can't really speculate on the lines with Mike Cammalleri out. Reid Boucher got into his second game in a row though but he isn't playing much of a role for the Devils right now. He's one to monitor in the future as he definitely has goal-scoring touch.

 

Cory Schneider really hasn't made good on the promise he showed last season, which had him pegged as favourite sleeper in many fantasy drafts. So far it seems like he's still sleeping himself. Games against the punchless Jets will go a long way to restoring his numbers though. And look, he scored a shootout win! That never would have happened last season.

 

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Just an excellent performance by the Penguins against the Kings last night. Or was it a bumbling performance by the Kings? Probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.

 

The Kings really didn't generate much in the way of offense until the third period and by that point the Penguins were in lock down mode having scored a couple of early power play markers thanks to some undisciplined play by the Kings. 

 

Jarret Stoll really stepped up with Anze Kopitar out. He was all over the place making great defensive plays and really generating most of what little offense the Kings were able to produce. There was one penalty kill where he generated more scoring chances than the Penguins did. He didn't score but not for lack of trying as he had six SOG.

 

I don't suspect Kopitar to miss much more time but the Kings do play two more games this weekend and if there is any indication that Kopitar will miss more action then Stoll makes a reasonable pickup.

 

One thing the Penguins did really well was slow down That 70's Line. I noticed maybe three good chances all game for those guys. Impressive work defensively.

 

There was one opportunity early in the first period where Jeff Carter got loose on an odd-man rush after the Penguins chased a couple of hits on the forecheck but Marc-Andre Fleury game up with a solid stop.

 

I really hate when the Penguins chase hits on the forecheck. They do it all of the time against the Flyers and it doesn't work. It all too frequently leads to odd-man rushes going the other way, which puts Fleury in a bad spot. The Penguins were disciplined in that regard for the most part in this one. And that certainly helped Fleury as he recorded his second shutout of the season.

 

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Chris Kunitz had himself quite the game with two goals and an assist. His first goal, on a slap pass from Evgeni Malkin was a really great tip.

 

Malkin, by the way, has points in every single game to start the season. That's just incredible consistency. It can't possibly continue all season as there is no way that their power play will continue to click at 39.5%, nor will they continue to score four goals per game. As that regresses we'll see some goose eggs for Malkin. Hell, Sidney Crosby already has a couple of goose eggs even with all this scoring.

 

Beau Bennett is back practicing for the Penguins. I think we can pretty much write him off because he keeps getting hurt but could he hinder a guy on a hot streak like Blake Comeau? Possible.

 

I really like what Comeau is bringing to the Malkin line though. He has incredible speed on the forecheck, which helps with puck retrieval for a possession demon like Malkin. Comeau won't score more than 40 points on that line so I'm not overly interested for fantasy purposes. I just think he helps Malkin.

 

How about a couple of Conn Smythe winners getting into it?

 

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Perhaps Scott isn't the Darling we all thought he was? Actually, Scott Darling didn't play that poorly from what I saw but there were obviously more blemishes than we'd seen before as he allowed four goals on 32 shots in a shootout victory.

 

This might be the last we see of Darling as Corey Crawford is back. Crawford sat on the bench for this one with Antti Raanta watching from the press box. The Blackhawks do have a back-to-back this weekend so we might see one more game from Darling here.

 

I don't think that Darling stick as the team's backup though. Raanta has a one-way deal so he's making big bucks regardless of where he is and he's proven capable in the backup slot. If there is an injury though, we now know who the Blackhawks will turn to and that's Darling.