Ramblings: Thoughts on Tierney, Chabot, Sanheim, Theodore, the Domino Effect and more (Mar 04)

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Now available for pre-sale – the 13^th annual Interactive Playoff Draft List. Pre-order it here. It will be released the Friday before the season ends. If you bought the Ultimate Fantasy Pack in the summer, this will be included in that purchase. It is not included in the Keeper Fantasy Pack.

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I’ve seen some people picking the Oilers apart for giving draft picks for the likes of Alex Petrovic and/or Brandon Manning. But really, what were they gonna do with that pick – draft with it? It’s the Oilers we’re talking about.

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I don’t blame the Oilers for any of their first-round picks, I would have drafted the same players. The failures – well, that was a case of picking in the wrong spot at the wrong time and in each case they took the best player available. But first rounders are no-brainers. A GM can make those picks without any scouting staff at all. They can just use Central Scouting or DobberProspects for that, am I right? The scouting staff comes into play with the picks after the first round, and that’s where Edmonton is pitiful. Sure, they have been better since 2015, but the bar for them was really low heading into that. Really they just went from ‘the worst’ to ‘something slightly below average’. I would seriously do a full-scale review of the entire staff and let three quarters of them go. Need fresh blood and a fresh outlook. And get back your analytics staff.

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I don’t know how I didn’t know this, or maybe I did and forgot, but a big need for the Oilers is a top puck-moving defenseman and they actually drafted Erik Gustafsson (fourth round, 2012). They couldn’t come to terms with him (or didn’t want to) in 2014 and lost him. A year later, Chicago signed him. Four years later, he has 41 points in 42 games.

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Alexandar Georgiev took the SOL Sunday, giving up a goal that didn’t actually go in the net (he threw his stick). Georgiev is 4-1-2, 2.78 and 0.920 SV% since February 6 and at this point he’s been starting every other game. He’s obviously performing better with the regular workload. As with most goalies, sporadic starts don’t work very well for him. It takes a certain mindset to be a successful backup, and that’s why career backups never become starters. From what I’ve seen of Georgiev, he is not a great backup. But is he good enough to be a starter? Perhaps, but his window for doing that in New York is closing as the organization’s Russian phenom Igor Shesterkin is likely on the way, perhaps as early as next year.

Neil Pionk has just two points in his last 25 games.

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It’s a combination of the new coach and the fact that all the star players are gone, well…more of the latter, but Chris Tierney is finally getting big power-play time. Oddly enough, that’s about when the production stopped for him. Maybe he’s like Conor Sheary and can’t produce with top-line minutes. But he has just one point in seven games and is minus-10 in that span. Prior to that he had 16 points in 17 games. I almost really like his outlook for next year. First, he’s one of the best players on the team now (who are they going to sign that is better? Will anyone even want to go there this summer?). Second, he’ll be 25 next season. I love the age of 26 the most in fantasy, but that’s close enough. Third, his trend is astonishingly steady. It goes upward at a nice pace, even going up a little during the supposed sophomore slump: 0.25, 0.29, 0.49 points-per-game average the last three years and is 0.62 this year. The only problem is – and it’s a big one – to whom will he give the puck? If he leads all Ottawa forwards in scoring next year will that be with 49 points?

I was asked a couple of times about Thomas Chabot, and what to do with him during what is the fantasy playoffs in some leagues. He has one point in seven games and is minus-13 (kind of makes Tierney’s last seven games look good). The entire team has been crap, which caused the coach to be fired prior to the season ending, which had initially been the plan. With a new coach things will turn around. That’s a relative term, of course, since this is a bad team so how much could it possibly turn around. But it will turn around in terms of winning the odd game and keeping them close. That means that Chabot’s plus/minus won’t be as horrible. But because the team lacks firepower, the points won’t be there. With 16 games left, Chabot will get about eight to nine points and will be minus-2. That’s my call. If that’s not worth keeping for your playoffs then you have to drop him.

Brian Gibbons isn’t getting a lot of ice time, but he does have three points in four games since joining Ottawa. He’s also playing on a line with Brady Tkachuk and Colin White.

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Florida coach Bob Boughner decided to reward rookie Henrik Borgstrom’s three-point effort on Saturday by giving him 11:33 of ice time on Sunday. That’s actually a reward. It’s his highest TOI in five games and third-highest in 12.

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Brian Elliott carried a shutout into the final five minutes and the Flyers chased Robin Lehner after three goals by the 23-minute mark. Elliott is healthy now and has three Quality Starts in his last four games. Cam Talbot’s one and only start for the team was a Quality Start. So the team is getting solid goaltending now and they’re winning games in a late surge for the postseason.

With another goal Sunday Travis Konecny has 18 points in his last 19 games. He’s still not getting onto the top PP unit and I wonder if they should consider putting him there.

Shayne Gostisbehere has one point in his last eight games while Travis Sanheim has 14 points in his last 16 games. Sanheim moved up to the top PP with Ghost on Sunday. He’s 115 games into his NHL career, but it appears that he’s arrived. At least his proven enough that he can move the puck at this level. There is no threat to Ghost, don’t worry about that, as $4.5 million for the next four seasons will see to it that he gets all the PP time. As a one-dimensional offensive player, Gostisbehere can’t really be used in a checking role.

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Marc-Andre Fleury has not allowed a goal in 169 minutes. This team is on fire now and the addition of Mark Stone has not only kickstarted the line he is on, but it’s free up the William Karlsson line. So that line is back rolling. Remember last year early on when it was considered the second line? This year it came in as the clear-cut first line: Karlsson with Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith. So of course the opposition keyed in on it, effectively stopping them. Now who do you key on? You can’t let Stone and Max Pacioretty run wild, right? Domino effect.

Further domino effect? Shea Theodore. He has four points in his last three games, his ice time has ramped up and he has 17 SOG in that span.

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With two points on Sunday, Jakob Silfverberg now has just seven points in his last 14 games. That, uh…leads Anaheim. Truth.

After missing most of the season with a UBI, Kevin Roy finally got into his first game. He had four points in five AHL games on a conditioning stint. Ryan Getzlaf was also back in the lineup and Roy was plunked on his line. Here were the line combos for the Ducks:

Roy may not have produced, but his presence on the first line allowed Silfverberg to play with a talented player (finally) in Rakell. Domino effect.

Since arriving in the Ducks organization Brendan Guhle has been in the lineup and given the PP reins. He’s seen about seven minutes of PP time so far but has yet to produce on it. Still, he picked up an ES assist Sunday. He’s young, so I would be surprised if he makes a splash this year even with all the PPTOI. But it’s experience, and it’s an indicator as to where the team hopes he’ll fit in down the road.

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Derick Brassard was on the second line with Carl Soderberg and J.T. Compher, scoring his second goal in an Avs’ uniform (four games). The team is 1-2-1 since he joined.

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For the first time in his career, Blake Wheeler scored four goals. He became the fifth player in franchise history to do that, joining Patrik Laine, Mathieu Perreault, Ilya Kovalchuk and…? Answer in the comments if you know it.

A year and a half ago I was high on Nathan Beaulieu, touting him as a strong dark horse. I did this because the Sabres went after him hard, acquiring him and immediately putting him on their power play. They desperately wanted him to succeed as a PP QB. A dark horse is all about opportunity. You’re betting purely on opportunity and not on results (because none are there yet). In this case, it flopped. I had him in two of my leagues and dropped him as soon as I could after the failure became clear. Now he’s been cast off to the Jets and while his ice time has gone up, he hasn’t seen PP time and he never will, given the talent on the blue line for Winnipeg. But he did pick up two assists on Sunday. I wonder if he could be a depth producer next year in the way that Tyler Myers has been this year. Beaulieu is 26 years old, so the timing is right. As a former first-round pick, the talent is there. Somewhere. And this is a high-scoring team so he could get 20 points almost by accident. He is an RFA this summer.

In his last eight starts, Connor Hellebuyck has faced 40.3 shots per game. Hello, defense?

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If you’re fighting for a playoff spot, I’m not sure if you put Cam Ward between the pipes. And now the Blackhawks see their slim hopes turn to microscopic. Ward has allowed at least four goals in each of his last five games.

Since being sent back down, Collin Delia has allowed five goals on 44 shots, in case you were curious.

In the end, the Blackhawks just couldn’t shut down that big line of San Jose’s. You know, that unstoppable line of Melker Karlsson, Barclay Goodrow and Michael Haley? Always put a guy on Haley, come on! They burned the Hawks for two of the five goals.

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Frozen Tools update: The game logs had been lacking ‘missed games’ indicators in the player profiles. They are in there now. It helps to easily identify when a player was out, or if he was scratched, etc.

DobberProspects update: Each scouting profile not only has our upside and certainty ranking at the top, scouting observations in the middle and the Elite Prospects career stats at the bottom…but now it has Mason Black’s fun pNHLe chart at the bottom. It takes a player’s stats in a given league at a given age and averages it out against history, spitting out his NHL potential upside. (Note: this won’t be ready until Wednesday, apparently. Sorry for the delay)

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See you next Monday.