Interesting to see Sidney Crosby wearing a headset last night up in the management box for the Penguins - apparently he was in close communication with Tony Granato, who runs the offense and forwards. Dallas prospect Perttu Lindgren recently completed a fantastic season in the SM-liiga. He recorded 66 points in 56 games. [...]
This week I will follow the lead of my Western Conference counterpart and take a look back at the season that was.
Saturday's ramblings will be posted at approximately 9:30am EST. Had a late night celeberating the Vancouver win! My fantasy mailbag is open all day! Pretty big news - Carolina has signed defensive standout Justin Faulk to an entry level contract. Faulk has a lot of offensive upside. He'll need a full AHL [...]
How do we build a winning team? Everyone knows the old adage of buy low, sell high but how exactly does that look over the course of a season? To answer the question well, we need to look at how poolies' perceptions vary over the year.
It turns out that perceptions follow a very predictable pattern. Once we identify that pattern, it’s much easier to position our teams to derive value from it. Taking advantage of this “perception cycle” is a very good way to accelerate a rebuild or just to make your keeper team stronger as the years go on.
The thinking process that goes in to selecting the Prime Cuts roster is similar to Pierre McGuire’s “Monsters” team on TSN (I promise that is the first and only time I will compare my thinking process to Pierre’s). Since this is a fantasy hockey site, the selection process favors players that have had strong seasons on the score sheet, obviously. However, not just goals and assists are weighted – perhaps a player has started to shoot the puck more, or play better defensively. Intangibles like heart, grit, and determination factor in to the selection process as well. It is far and away my favorite article to write each year, and I hope you will all enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
The second part of this series will name the bottom six forwards and two goaltenders.
What Carey Price has done this season is sensational. I am one of his biggest critics (well, used to be), but he stepped into an absolutely horrid situation (Halak being traded away) and has played elite level hockey all season long. Can't imagine the pressure he was under, especially last fall. Stuck to his [...]
Buy the Playoff Draft List here. Silly me - I saw Andrei Kostitsyn take a wicked shot off the foot in Game 1 and hobble off the ice. And then after Game 2 I report (below) that he was a healthy scratch. Duh. Obviously he's hurt. I did think they put the hook [...]
As the NHL season came to a close, fans were captivated yet again by Joe Pavelski. “Little Joe” or “The Big Pavelski” as he is sometimes referred to, has displayed an elite skillset to complement his clutch performances. It took him some time to get going, but once he did, Pavelski strung together a career-high 66 points, which was two more than superstar teammate Dany Heatley. And Pavelski did it in six fewer games.
Buy the Draft List here. Raffi Torres will not be suspended by the NHL, per TSN. That just seems...weird. Even if the play was innocent, and my opinion on that is Switzerland, the fact remains that the NHL was supposed to be clamping down on these. The Wheel of Justice continues to spin... [...]
Even though the regular season is over, whatever you do, don’t shut off your fantasy radar. The chance to uncover some quality goalie intel is deceptively high. In fact, you can a better feel for a goaltender’s true fabric and long-term value during the playoffs than at any other point during the regular season.
