Lee Stempniak might be worth keeping on your fantasy team for much of the season. 

I find that this time of year, trades are hard to come by, particularly in keeper leagues. Rival managers (rightly or wrongly) all think that they still have a chance to win so they are hesitant to sell off. Managers are also leery of selling low on underperforming assets while at the same time asking too much for their overperforming assets. To me, the best way to really affect your lineup between late November and the new year is by smart waiver adds. Today I have a perfect candidate in Lee Stempniak.

As a journeyman forward whose best point total in the past five seasons has been 34, Stempniak is toiling on the waiver wire, available in 71 percent of Yahoo! leagues currently. Settling in with the Devils though, Stempniak is poised to top that mark before the halfway mark of the current campaign. With 18 points in 22 games, Stempniak may have caught people’s eyes a little easier than some of my previous Geeks of the Week, but I’ll be honest – I watch zero New Jersey Devils hockey and I never look at the points leaders. The way I found Stempniak was the way I find all my players: running a two minute report in Fantasy Hockey Geek that shows the rankings of every player in my league. Here is the result:

(12 team Yahoo! standard league)

FHG showed me very quickly that Stempniak is providing the 72^nd most value of any player in my league so far this season. It’s still very early in the season, so I am always very wary of putting too much stock in a simple hot streak, so I looked a little further into Stempniak. To do this, I looked at one of my new favorite tools on Dobberhockey, the Player Profiles. Looking at the profile for Stempniak, I see that his shooting percentage is in line with his career average at 10.2 percent, while his 5 on 5 shooting percentage is slightly high but not too bad – telling me that his current 67 point pace will likely only slightly slow down (I’m estimating back towards around 60). Even he slows down to 60 points though, that’s still a great total as evidenced by the fact that only 53 players in the entire NHL accomplished that feat last year.

Another thing I noticed on Stempniak’s profile is that he is on the top power play and the top line in New Jersey. The Devils are far from a prolific team and their top line is not going to make the cover of any magazines any time soon. But if you give any NHLer that kind of ice time, his production is going to increase. Stempniak’s season this year reminds me a bit of Matt Stajan when he had a couple of productive years with the Leafs. Stajan played at a 60-point pace basically as a result of the Leafs having nobody else to roll out there. Lee Stempniak is taking full advantage of a similar situation in New Jersey, and his point totals are benefiting from it. Stempniak is also seeing a spike in his power-play points with six already this season, a mark that he hasn’t eclipsed since 2009-10.

All of this additional opportunity that Stempniak is seeing with the Devils is helping his shots, points and power-play points. When you throw all that into the FHG calculator, it shows you that he is a player who is worth rostering in far more than the 29 percent of leagues that he is currently owned in.

One final key point I’d like to make on Stempniak is his value in salary cap leagues. When you consider his modest $850,000 salary, Stempniak’s production is considerably more impressive. Fantasy Hockey Geek has actually added functionality to run your league to show players’ values when you account for their salary. Look what it does for Stempniak in a standard league with a $70M cap:

In a league with a $70M cap, Stempniak becomes the 57^th most valuable player. His $/FHG value (a metric that shows bang for your buck) is the eighth best of any player in the league. If you are in a salary cap league and Stempniak is still available, then please stop reading now and go add him.

Lee Stempniak isn’t the most talented guy in the world, and his best may be behind him. But his current situation in New Jersey is providing him with an opportunity to flourish. FHG shows us that given the current circumstances, Stempniak needs to be owned particularly in salary cap leagues. The one caveat I will add with Stempniak is that he will certainly be a candidate to be traded at the deadline. If he goes to a contender, he will likely become a third liner again who will be valuable to his real-life team, but less so to his fantasy team. If that happens though, you can drop him. In the meantime you should be rostering Stempniak now and benefiting from the goodness. To find more guys like Stempniak sign up for Fantasy Hockey Geek today and try out the salary cap functionality while you’re at it!