The Journey

The quest in Calgary to find a centre to mesh with Jarome Iginla might still be going on by the time Mitch Wahl is ready for the NHL.

The quest continues partly because of a lack of quality centre prospects in the organization, but also because finding good chemistry between linemates is sometimes elusive when you’re relying on logic – no matter how sound. Sometimes, plain intuition, a coach’s gut instinct or dumb luck can be the catalyst for a potent line combination.

A good way to avoid wasting your time as a prospector – and your draft picks as a fantasy hockey GM – is to learn to spot fool’s gold.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been touting players that I thought might be worth having a look at. This week, I’m going to try to get you to steer clear of a player.

Hardcore hockey fans probably didn’t know who Matt Halischuk was in December of 2007. Halischuk was a 4th-round pick of the New Jersey Devils that summer after scoring 66 points in 67 games for the Kitchener Rangers the year before.

Sometimes, prospectors blaze a trail and go out on a limb and pan for gold in a stream where no one has been before – and, sometimes, they go back to a stream that they know produced some nuggets before.

NHL scouts are no different and a fantasy hockey GM should be aware of the importance of good bloodlines. While they are not a guarantee of success – these are hockey prospects we’re talking about – they do help improve the odds of making it in the NHL. And since every little edge and advantage helps you win in this game, it is something worth paying attention to.

You have to be patient with prospects, and that’s especially true with goalies and defencemen. Forwards are most likely to jump into the NHL at a young age and have a fantasy impact, but there’s a certain breed of forward that requires just as much patience as goalies and defensemen: power forwards.