It is November 16 guys. Think on that for a moment. Not counting the days off, there are 144 days left in the season. We have yet to even reach the quarter mark so the fate of your fantasy team is far from sealed. If you are one of the lucky few to have come out of the gates flying, soak it up but do not get complacent. Likewise, if your team looks out of it now, chin up.
On Monday forum member mvp0207 asked the question: Myers or Kulikov? As I was diving in to answer his question I realized that this would make for the perfect Cage Match. His league has the standard 6x4 H2H rotisserie format and while it is a one year league I will answer his question for both the one year and keeper scope. You ready? Let’s do this.
In my mind Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash will always be connected as two of the wasted talents of this generation. Their careers are far from over but having used up their youth as the faces of two of the league’s most moribund franchises I feel confident making that claim.
Did you take my advice and watch the Ducks-Sharks games this past week? Admittedly Friday’s game was a snoozer. I felt dumb for having hyped up that game so much. It was as though I was a producer of The Playboy Club or something. I let you down and the game let us all down. Monday’s game more than made up for it though. Anaheim’s stars finally turned it on and brought some excitement to this rivalry. There were scrums, there were fights and most of all there were plenty of scoring chances. That’s all you can really ask for at this stage of the season.
To continue my efforts of informing the public of what a great rivalry this is, Cage Match will feature Part Two in the Ducks-Sharks saga. This time we look to the blue line. It is Dan Boyle vs. Lubomir Visnovsky. Let’s get it on!
The Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks will play each other twice over the next week in what I assume will be a couple of the best hockey games we will see this early in the season. I am mildly annoyed that more has not been made about the Ducks-Sharks rivalry. I mean, these are two teams that have largely been competitive in the past few seasons, and are both division and state rivals. If the California coast was somehow located in Canada then this rivalry would be a bigger deal than Ron Burgundy. Sadly that is not the case.
I recently realized that I have not done a defensemen-centric Cage Match since May. It is not that I hate defensemen. I think it is just because defensemen are just so doggone hard to draft. They are far too fickle for my liking. One year they look like gold and the next the magic is gone. (Kinda like Lindsay Lohan, am I right?) Sure that can happen to any player but with defensemen the swings are so much more significant because they score fewer points in general. They also score much fewer goals so instead of relying on their talents to produce points like forwards can they rely more heavily on teammates and other situational factors. This is problematic for us poolies. I mean, how many questionable secondary assists did your defensemen snake last season? And can they be counted on to be as lucky? The answers are almost impossible.
In the recent Dobber Hockey Expert’s League draft I was faced with a difficult decision. It was the seventh round and I had yet to pick a centerman. Worst of all, the cream of the crop had been picked clean. It was to be expected but I was nevertheless disappointed. Clearly I needed to grab the best centerman available and had plenty of options with upside just nothing that was a sure fire winner. All the options I considered had upside but every one of them came with a possible deal breaker. It was like when Barney describes the fatal “Ohhhh…” moment on How I Met Your Mother only instead of chicks I was judging NHL players.
Confession time guys. I’m still way into the 90’s. Seinfeld re-runs still crack me up, my favourite bands are mostly grunge, and my fashion sense is still awkwardly horrible (probably because my clothes from grade six still fit me). Beyond my cell phone (which I abhor) and high speed internet I really haven’t moved on from that decade. I know this because over a decade later I still don’t find it the least bit weird that I still have an Austin Powers “Oh Behave!” poster hanging above my bed. The irony has never ceased to crack me up, just like I’ll never get over the awe I feel for players who played back then. I don’t know if it is nostalgia or if I am a complete loser, my friends won’t tell me.
Looking for the perfect sleeper pick? Me too, and I think I have it. I just need to narrow it down. Yahoo! has Peter Mueller and Tomas Fleischmann ranked excruciatingly low at 321 and 403 respectively. But here’s the question, which one do you pick? It is entirely possible that you just hold out until the last possible moment and grab whichever one happens to drop to you but if you are fortunate (or unfortunate enough) to have to make a choice you will have to narrow it down. That is why this week’s Cage Match is Mueller vs. Fleischmann for the Golden Pillow Award. Oh and please excuse the EMTs, our lawyers (yeah we have lawyers) told us we couldn’t do this Cage Match without them.
David Backes has become an absolute darling in the world of fantasy hockey and I will not lie I hopped on board that train three seasons ago and nearly rode it to a championship. I have been on that train ever since and I really have not been disappointed. Here is the problem I am having though. The hype machine may be swirling to unsustainable levels. Right now you’ll find Backes as the 46th ranked skater in Yahoo! Leagues and is being drafted on average as the 50th skater so you are seeing some course correction being made by poolies but even 50th overall is a little high, at least when you consider where some other players are dropping. Consider, for instance, Scott Hartnell, who is the 68th ranked skater and is being drafted (on average) even later as the 93rd best skater. When I see numbers like this I see poolies who are in need of guidance because there is very little reason to take Backes so much higher than Hartnell. In fact, there is a case that Hartnell should go higher. Don’t believe me? Well then come along for the ride because this week’s Cage Match is Backes vs. Hartnell in a battle of the roto-studs.
