Roos Lets Loose

Callahan vs. Heatley - I wish I could have gotten this week’s Cage Match out before the start of the season. I feel like it could have saved you all some pain. Much like last week’s Filppula vs. Ribeiro Cage Match I will be comparing an in-decline veteran with an up-and-coming youngster. This week it is Dany Heatley vs. Ryan Callahan. Does the vet have anything left in the tank? Is the youngster ready to usurp him? Let’s find out. Ring that bell!

My two favourite mantras in fantasy hockey are; buy low sell high and; proven over potential. As we saw last week in the Giroux vs. Kane Cage Match sometimes you just have to throw those out the window. Things do eventually change. Learning to tell the difference between a buy low stock and a sinking ship is tremendously valuable. Being able to tell the difference between a breakout player and a fast starter is similarly valuable. In this week’s Cage Match we look at two different players in two very different situations – one in the latter situation and one in the former. It’s Valterri Filppula vs. Mike Ribeiro. Are these two contenders or pretenders?

I cannot lie to you guys, I have been afraid to write this Cage Match article for quite some time. I mean, it is easy to compare Patrick Kane and Claude Giroux but how do you discern a difference beyond the logo on the front, and the name on the back of their sweaters? They are pretty much the same guy, as far as fantasy hockey is concerned.

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.