Roos Lets Loose

Cage Match: Who is the better fantasy own - Drew Doughty or Alex Pietrangelo?

Drew Doughty and Alex Pietrangelo will always be linked in my mind as the best two traditional defensemen drafted in the disgustingly loaded 2008 NHL Entry Draft. Yes, yes, yes, Erik Karlsson, but note I said traditional defensemen. Karlsson is something else. He’s the cherry on top. Doughty and Pietrangelo were drafted to become anchors on the blueline for their once wayward franchises and they’ve become just that.

Roos takes a funny look at what Google's Instant Search offers when you type certain player names... 

It’s hard to believe that Google Instant Search has been around for almost three years. For those who don’t know what Instant Search is (or might not realize they do), the way it works is when you type something in a Google search box it auto-completes the search as you type, predicting what you’re searching for based on the most popular searches that have been run which match what you’ve typed so far. Since it debuted, Instant Search has been used as a source for humor almost as much as for information. I figured I’d try to mix a little bit of both with this week’s column by using Google Instant Search to have some fun, but also to see if it could somehow be turned into a useful tool for fantasy hockey enthusiasts.

This week's Cage Match - who is the better fantasy own, Logan Couture or Derek Stepan?

The last time we discussed Derek Stepan I had him losing to David Desharnais. Oops.

After a huge breakout season (44 points in 48 games) Stepan looks like a star. He always had potential but we could only wonder if it would ultimately translate. It obviously has. But this season is fraught with small sample size wonders. Many a player has put together a great half-season. Dustin Byfuglien was a point-per-game defenseman for 40 games once, ditto for Dustin Penner at forward for a similar stretch. This isn’t so much a slight at those guys but rather a reminder that strange things happen over smaller stretches of games. We simply don’t know if Stepan has the mojo to sustain those scoring rates over 82 games, especially with much more difficult travel coming next season.

These eight players are good...but not worth the cost

In last week’s column, I highlighted eight players who aren’t as bad as they might seem. This week I figured I’d shift my focus to the other end of the spectrum – eight guys who are good, but not worth the cost it would likely take to obtain them via trade or in a draft for the 2013-14 season. In other words, any of these eight guys could be a very nice addition to your fantasy team in 2013-14, but you still might be best to avoid obtaining them because you’ll likely have to pay too much of an inflated price.

Eight players who are thought to be busts...but really aren't

One of the biggest traps that Fantasy Hockey GMs can fall into is overvaluing players, either by paying too high a price to draft or trade for them, or by holding onto them even after it becomes clear they’re not worthy of still being owned. But it’s arguably just as bad to mislabel a player as a bust when he could still turn things around, or to ignore a player whose performance seems to have fallen off but who still could help your team despite maybe having lost a step.

Cam Fowler vs. Vyacheslav Voynov

This should really be Voynov vs. my keyboard since I have most certainly butchered that name a hundred times over the years and may have even done so right now. However you spell it, Voynov’s a name you had better get to know because he’s fast becoming one of the best young defensemen in fantasy hockey so much so that this has become a compelling Cage Match.

 Roos investigates players who will disappoint ... or improve in the West next season

Welcome to Part 2 of my series about non-playoff teams, focusing on two players from each team – one who I think is a good bet to improve next season, and another who I feel will disappoint. In last week’s column I tackled the Eastern Conference, so this week it’s time for the West. For my “Final Verdict”, I’ll again go over some keys to identifying guys like these, plus talk about how this really all boils down to value versus expectations.

Roos takes a look at non-playoff teams and gives suggestions on which players will improve and who will disappoint in 2013-14. First up - the Eastern Conference

This time of year, most fantasy hockey enthusiasts are either closely following their guys in the playoffs or taking a break until free agent signings begin during the summer. The problem is that both approaches ignore the players on the 14 teams which didn’t make the NHL playoffs, and risks an “out of sight, out of mind” situation where you won’t be able to remember enough about these players when the time comes for retentions or offseason deals.

Here is the first of a two-part column about players on non-playoffs teams (this week covering the Eastern Conference teams, next week the Western Conference), focusing on two players from each team – one who I think is a good bet to improve next season, and another who I feel will disappoint. 

Cage Match – Alex Goligoski vs. Roman Josi

This week will feature a matchup that was debated a bit in the DobberHockey forums in a thread I replied to. There were some valid points made on both sides so I felt like a deeper look was warranted. So Goligoski vs. Josi it is.

Cage Match – Zach Bogosian vs. Erik Johnson

The trend with the recent Cage Match articles is about giving the people what they want so by request we will get our bust on this week looking at Zach Bogosian and Erik Johnson. Now you might argue that the bust label is unfair so allow me to qualify. It’s completely unfair to label a guy who skates over 20 minutes a night for his team a bust, regardless of his draft position but from a fantasy perspective well that gets a bit more reasonable. When a defenseman gets drafted that high we assume he has some offensive acumen and we hope he’s going to be the next Chris Pronger. The problem is that there’s only one Chris Pronger and even with him the dividends were slow to arrive.  So even when considering fantasy hockey you have to be really careful when applying that bust label to a defenseman because they can take forever to develop.